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The Web Will Rise Again - Give It Time
from the people-change-slowly dept
A good article that points out that the web actually is useful for lots of things but that doesn't mean that customers are going to immediately use it to do everything. The example he gives is buying movie tickets online - which he didn't do for a very long time, but which turned out to be a great experience that he wishes he'd tried earlier. At first I thought this was silly (I buy a lot of my movie tickets online these days), but then I remembered a conversation I had recently with someone who couldn't believe I never tried Webvan. Even technology loving people find it a bit of a pain to change routine. Eventually, they'll get around to it, and might even find it useful - but most of these things aren't essential to us, even if the companies want us to believe it's so. Thus, many of the ideas that are failing now, may eventually come back in a different form and be more successful, as people have more time to test them out and get used to them.
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Broadband is major factor
I agree that it will take more time to get consumers to change their ways, but I believe that broadband will be a strong catalyst for that change. I know that I would be apt to do much more of my shopping, movie tix buying, news gathering, etc... if the connection was simply on, reliable, and fast. Unfortunately, the broadband companies are screwing up what should be a much smoother rollout of their service. I currently live in the middle of Manhattan and I can't get reliable service (so imagine how people feel in rural areas that don't even offer any service yet). I think change will come and many of life's bland daily neccessary routines will be achieved more efficiently over the Net, but that day will not come until Web access is as reliable as a telephone dial tone.
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