I'm not sure why this below article is news. The Grossman-Minow duo were highlighted in Gary Chapman's now-discontinued LA Times column on May 5. Chapman reported the pair are eager to launch a new federal bureaucracy, a "Digital Opportunity Investment Trust, a public agency modeled on the National Science Foundation." It'll be paid for with $18 billion in spectrum auctions -- money that could have given every American family perhaps $100-$200 in tax rebates instead. Chapman laments that "new developments in online business are creating a heightened sense of urgency because many Web-based companies are starting to explore 'pay-per-view' or subscription-based fees to maximize the value of their intellectual property." Well, yes. Advertising is in the toilet, so companies are choosing to sell content as an alternative to going out of business. Salon is a perfect example, and plenty of news articles have described how other formerly-free services are trending toward pay services. This is not a pernicious development; in fact it has advantages. On pay services, we won't see as many ads. As for this new federal agency, who needs it? There already are more "public spaces" on the Net than content to fill them -- I daresay Grossman and Minow have never been on Usenet -- and setting up a web server with a large hard drive is hardly expensive. If people really want content online, the market will respond by producing it. We don't have $18 billion federal book, magazine or newspaper projects, but somehow we see splendid writing nonetheless. I talked about this at greater length instead of in midnight-rant form in my testimony last year before the Democracy Online Project: http://www.politechbot.com/p-01184.html -Declan ********* WHY NOT FUND ONLINE CONTENT? Lawrence K. Grossman, former president of PBS, and Newton Minow, former FCC chief, have proposed what they call a Digital Opportunity Investment Trust, which would be a federally chartered agency along the lines of the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health. The goal would be public funding of online content, focusing on educational and civic uses of digital technology. The money ($18 billion), which the backers suggest could be taken from spectrum auction revenues, would be used to help build worthwhile places to visit in cyberspace: "You could have a virtual solar system, a 3D model of the human body or a recreation of Mark Twain's America," says Grossman. Minow compares his Digital Promise Project's approach to the 19th-century legislation that created land-grant colleges. "There's an opportunity to do that again," he says. (Wall Street Journal 23 Jul 2001) http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB995840737736919399.htm Democratizing Information Jun. 3, 2001 07:26 ET http://www.latimes.com/print/editorials/20010602/t000045934.html Television, more vast than ever, turns toxic Author of famed '61 quote revisits the vast wasteland May. 10, 2001 04:46 ET http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010509/3301798s.htm Paying for Net Foils 'Public Space' Idea May. 4, 2001 05:57 ET http://www.latimes.com/print/techtimes/20010503/t000037177.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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