 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group CPU (Club President's Report) Charles Wright charles@melbpc.org.au |
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As a journalist reporting on information technology, I frequently ponder on the effects and meaning of the Internet on society in general, and in particular on my own profession.
Because I'm also an avid consumer of the products of journalism, I'm frequently ambivalent about those changes.
My reflections are further complicated by the fact that I'm also a voluntary administrator of a public body which is an Internet provider. All of us, to a certain extent, will experience those ambiguities, as we move increasingly towards the networked, interactive world.
In the case of my professional interests, I see both an expanding marketplace, and the threat of increasing competition, not just from existing mass media converging in the electronic agora, but also from new enterprises who've discovered they no longer need to invest in printing presses, or the infrastructure of radio and television.
I welcome, and at the same time cannot fail to be apprehensive about the fact that I'm no longer so conveniently insulated from those who read, and happen to disagree with the opinions I express, or challenge the facts as I present them.
The fact that it's a good deal easier to dash off a letter to the editor by e-mail, rather than by post, is only a minor consideration. Far more serious is the fact that readers can much more easily share their reactions among themselves, in an online forum or a newsgroup. The reputations of some of my colleagues and the august publications they represent, here and internationally, have already been undermined by those shared commentaries, and I'm aware that I must be increasingly vigilant about my own reputation.
My loyalty to my colleagues, to the company for which I work, and the publications I've helped establish, at times conflicts with my responsibilities as a member of the community, and as president of this club. As traditional boundaries blur in the electronic society, many more of us will confront those personal ambiguities.
One small, but thought-provoking example of this, was my reaction to an editor's note in a recent edition of
Computer Age, which was attached to a recommendation from George Skarbek, who is a member of this group, and a contributor to that publication - yet another example of the way in which knowledge of computers can broaden our professional opportunities.
George mentioned this group's Internet service as an inexpensive route to the online world, which did not represent a conflict of interests, in my view, given that this is a not-for-profit body, and a vital public resource that the community ought to be made aware of.
The editor of Computer Age chose however to publicly dismiss club services, and by implication this club's service, as inferior, instead naming a commercial provider with which he's apparently had some contact.
I'm not commenting on the professional propriety of that sort of recommendation - although I imagine the competitors of the favoured company weren't highly amused - but I was certainly concerned that this club's service, which I know from personal experience is infinitely greater in terms of personal technical assistance, automated installation, BBS support, SIG meetings, magazine articles, training etc - than any commercial organisation could hope to provide, was so casually, and so comprehensively dismissed.
Although the editor did mention that commercial services were more expensive, there was no attempt to determine how much more expensive, or how much more convenient the service he publicised actually is, compared to ours.
It seemed to me, given the rate at which we are increasing our bandwidth and the number of dial-in lines we're installing, that we represent far greater value than the editor acknowledged, and that a newspaper like The Age ought to have been more careful about remarks that further the cause of a single commercial provider, at the expense of its competitors, and a cheaper, not-for-profit public resource.
In my experience it's not at all easy to make such a comparison, particularly given the fact that the service the editor recommended refuses to disclose to the public how much bandwidth it offers. All it will say is that it's in the process of increasing it. I believe customers have the right to expect that sort of information will be made available to them.
It's also difficult to judge the ease of connection, because although the company claims (and I'm willing to accept) that it has a 15-to-one ratio of customers to modems, which is better than we currently offer, there's no 90-minute limit.
I'm quite prepared to acknowledge that it's almost certainly easier to get an immediate connection to this company than you can expect from the group. (But watch this space!)
But much more to the point, in my view, is the fact that this service charges $4.80 an hour for online time, after an initial introductory period, and when you compare that even to the increased rate of $120 a year for 90-minutes-a-day access, which we will be charging this year, users are going to be paying a substantial premium if they take the commercial route. In my opinion, $4.80 an hour, without a guarantee of superior bandwidth, is simply too much to pay.
I think I'm far more comfortable defending this club's position than Computer Age ought to be defending its recommendation, and accordingly, I commend to you the Internet application form in this issue. I think it's one you can safely recommend to your friends and colleagues.
I don't suggest it's the best available, and if you're going to be accessing the Internet for business or professional reasons, where the ability to get an immediate connection is a worthwhile advantage, you might be better off choosing a commercial provider. In my own case, because I can't afford to wait, I pay for two commercial Internet services I suspect might provide, in their different ways, better value than
Computer Age's recommendation - but in terms of value for money, what we offer is outstanding. And, if you subscribe, you can of course communicate your opinion of our club and what it represents to the public, directly to
The Age, via the Internet. As we who are online often put it, ;-).
Reprinted from the March 1996 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
