Content is Not King!

The Internet is widely regarded as primarily a content delivery system. Yet historically, connectivity has mattered much more than content. Even on the Internet, content is not as important as is often claimed, since it is e-mail that is still the true "killer app."

In general, content is distributed by "mass" or "broadcast" communications systems. Until a few decades ago, such services could be distinguished easily from "point-to-point" (or, more precisely, "person-to-person") communications, which included first class letters and phone calls, and were specific to the people involved in the transaction.

During the last few decades, the distinction between point-to-point and broadcast communication began to blur. Computers allowed for the mass preparation of personalized letters offering credit cards, say. Answering machines and voice response systems led to machine-mediated point-to-point communications. Individuals were able to reach large audiences through postings to netnews, or, more recently, through their personal Web pages. We can expect this evolution of communications to continue, and eventually to achieve that convergence in which there will be a continuum between point-to-point and broadcast communication. However, we are not there yet, and won't be for a while.


These two types of communications were sometimes combined during distribution, as in the postal system, which carried both letters and newspapers, in an early example of "convergence." However, there was a noticeable distinction in how these two types of communication were prepared, handled, perceived by the recipients, and (a point discussed at great length already) in how much people were willing to pay for them.


We may very well end up with a system in which the largest monetary contribution will come from commercial users, the second largest for households paying for point-to-point communication, and the smallest by the transport component of charges for content.