Fergus Cassidy

End of the innocence

WHAT is it about people who get up and leave a big game with ten minutes before the final whistle? Maybe the score is so one-sided that the result is a formality. But what if they miss something? Some piece of magic that will linger long in the memory. Then again maybe they know something that the rest of the crowd don't.

As the so-called old economy dishes out a thrashing to the new economy, the stewards have moved to end-of-match positions. It's certainly tough times for new economy supporters and who could blame them for making for the exits.

The new economy is finished. It and its fans regulated to the lower divisions for the foreseeable future. It might get back in the top flight, but until then it will have to depend on student theses for its survival.

Yet it had a very good run and threatened for a while with its fancy and stylish tactic of disintermediation. This particular tactic was not only going to rip the heart out of the old economy's defence but would also do it with flair. If it let in goals, the new economy would just score more.

Try and tie a browser to an operating system and another one will be developed. And in offices that had pianos, rollerblade cleaners and free M&Ms. Put it on the stock exchange and watch the share price soar and not a profit in sight. That was stylish - and cheeky with it.

Put up a file sharing program, get 80m hits a day and sell it when it's about to be closed down. Another one will be along in a minute anyway. Nothing was going to stop the future as it demolished the past and rewrote the history books, taking in the laws of economics on the way.

But now the internet has ended it's meteoric assault on the bastions of the old order. The past has caught up with it and is proceeding to teach the former upstart some harsh lessons. What the old economy can actually teach the new economy however, is a moot point, as a quick glance around the world's economies doesn't exactly bring back a glowing report card.

The internet ran out of steam a while back and was running on the momentum picked up over the last seven years. The old economy may have shown who really is the boss but the internet contributed to its own malaise. Chiefly its own limitations.

For a system of data communications, it operated marvellously within the defined boundaries of a small number of users. The web in particular was a minor miracle. Not only in how it came to be, but also that it didn't become the exclusive property of some giant multinational corporation or political superpower. The scientific and research community had access to a very powerful tool for experimentation and collaboration.

But once the commercialisation of the net was officially sanctioned in 1998, it was only a matter of time before the limits of the net were reached. Those limits were internal and external.

The internal limits were caused by the history of its structure, where the technicians at the core believed in "rough consensus and running code" and steered well clear of social issues and the associated political baggage. Even now as spam stalks the land, the technicians discuss and argue not only how to find solutions, but whether they should even be involved in solutions in the first place. The net has reached such critical importance that it now involves complex societal issues which were not a factor 10 or even five years ago.

And some of those factors have created external limiters to the internet. The globalisation of the world economy has brought with it a maze of legal and social complexity. The single issue of copyright has almost single-handedly pulled the shutters down. And copyright is about a lot more than downloading music or movies. The issue has uncorked the genie of intellectual property and who owns what. The internet was not designed with 'No Trespassing' signs in mind. Computers can talk to each other and send and receive information at unimaginable speeds, but they can't sort out society's problems.

And that's where the old economy won the battle. The drift toward globalisation created by a market-driven economy has been happening for a long time. The experience of history has produced laws, systems of government and treatys that attempt to deal with social and political issues, for good or bad.

The internet is not going to get the chance to try and produce a similar outcome. All the positive aspects, to what is still one of the greatest advances in communications technologies, are pushed to the side as the net is reshaped. A senior executive from News Corporation refers to the internet as having "no morality". Record and movie industry leaders talk about "theft" and "stealing". And of course there's the pron. With the smell of victory in the air, the old economy is moving in for the kill, with lawyers and lobbyists leading the charge.

Of the acres of space given over to the death of the dotcoms, there will be little given to other casualties. In spite of that fiasco, and sometimes in spite of itself, the internet has become an industry. The commercialisation process has focussed attention away from the educational and cultural dimensions and has instead concentrated on the business aspects.

This has left very little room for those who look for agreement and consensus. Instead they are met with imposition backed by law. The middle ground has disappeared and a lot of energy along with it.

The internet no longer has a free rein and the deep well of goodwill and enthusiasm is rapidly running dry. But it can't stand still for long. If the net is a series of computer networks, then they can be shaped and moulded to fit in more easily with existing economic, political and social structures. Right now there seems little room for compromise between the laissez faire positions of both extremes.

In the immediate future, there is a good chance that various technologies (from computers to protocols) will be rearranged to take the net on to the next phase. With trusted computing as the foundation stone, it might be possible to create a network with the safeguards and securities that are the hallmarks of the old economy.

In that situation there are fears that the net will fragment and become the splinternet. That possibility has been the greatest fear of those who played a part in shaping the net up to now. If the net goes 'mainstream' then it will probably become an extremely interactive version of television. With an awful lot going for it but not enough to please everybody or offer solutions to problems that previous generations couldn't solve. Other networks will spring up - if it happened once it can happen again.

The net as it exists now will become tiered or layered rather than fragment and shatter. If such a scenario can cope with the kind of social and political complexities faced by internet v1.0, then it just might be the end of the beginning.