The internet is dead, again

The internet has been pronounced dead, once again.  This time it's Mark Cuban, who says that what's more exciting and influential is.... tv.  "The Internet’s dead. It’s over.”

Speaking on the closing panel of the CTAM Summit here, Cuban declared, “The Internet’s for old people.”

His basic point: The Internet has gone stagnant. The only “new application” on the World Wide Web of recent vintage was, in his view, YouTube -- which, unlike Cuban’s Broadcast.com, ripped off the creative content of intellectual-property owners to build its video-based business.

Or: "By 'dead' I mean 'I can't make the money I want from it.'"

The "internet is dead" meme goes back to the 1990s.  Previous Infocult apocalypso: Google hints at doom, Day of the Dead Web 2.0, an MMOG winks out of existence.  The Onion does the best job on this score.

(via The Lede)

Comments

[peter naegele]

I think the article glosses over a lot of Cuban's points....check out his blog entry on the subject.

For example, consider: "...the best years of the Internet are behind it. Before you get all mad at me, ask yourself this. What is the increase in your broadband speed THROUGHPUT over the past 1,2,5 or 10 years ?" Indeed, as Cuban points out, the cost has dropped, but throughput has not significantly increased.

He states that huge speed jumps are found in intranets. It is no surprise that he promotes this because Cuban owns HDnet, but he is correct in his assessment that the cable companies' intranets work much more efficiently than the internet.

[Bryan Alexander]

Thanks for the pointer to Cuban's blog entry, peter.

It is an odd piece. Lines like this really undercut his thinking: "the fact that intranets can significantly outperform Internets and in particular THE Internet is a shocking concept" (it is? to whom?). Or his conflating of the global internet to the American experience - US broadband is far too slow, as is well known.

But I can't accept his bizarre claim that the net is dead for development. Web 2.0, to pick one aspect, is a riot of creative development. Gaming? Social media?

I am not surprised that Cuban owns something which he promotes!

Not being a sports fan, I have yet to be persuaded to devote steady mindshare to this guy.