Very Computer

>> People are willing to "pay a toll" to the "banker" for cable TV.
<snip>
>> Now sure, there is an alternative model which would be that the user pays
>> each time they access Photoshop. My guess is that no-one is particularly
>> thrilled with this model, so offering it up as a strawman proves nothing.
>> There may be (and given the way these things work, probably will be)
>> "platinum service" costing say $40 a month, that allows for use of
>> Photoshop, while the base service only gives you the use of "Photoshop LE"
>> or whatever. There may be (like from the phone world" a middling option
>> that allows for up to 10 uses (or hours of use or whatever) of the
>> platinum services apps.

>Considering that most home users get all the basic software they need
>"free" with their system and most commercial users get huge discounts to buy a
>"site" license, that $25 - $40 per month plus the cost of the NC
>will soon equal much more than the cost of a windows system (or even a
>mac for that matter).  In addition, the home user will need a huge pipe for
>it to even work somewhat as well as a windows system.  If the phone
>companies and the cable folks have their way, that fat pipe will cost
>at least another $40 per month.  With a PC, folks don't have to have
>a pipe at all if they don't want it.

>> In some cases, the information *will* cost.  For example, I pay to
>> access Consumer Union's web site (the good stuff), but it is my option
>> to do so.  The idea of an NC accessing information and the user paying
>> a "toll" to the "banker" for each use of a word processing program is
>> not one that will sell at all, I'm afraid.  (At least it hasn't
>> exactly turned the world upside down to date.  Even Larry Ellison, the
>> disciple of NC has been conspicuously absent from the airwaves of
>> late.)  If it ever does happen, you'll see typewriters make a big
>> comeback. <g>

>And you say this based on what?
>People are willing to "pay a toll" to the "banker" for cable TV.

>I am not saying this will be the model, but let's suppose TCI goes into
>the NC business. Let's say you're connected by a very fast pipe, have fast
>internet access AND you can use any of the apps you want in their
>library---all for the price of $25 a month. They in turn keep tabs on app
>usage and based on that usage (like advertizing in TV) send some number of
>dollars each month to the vendors. That strikes me as a pretty compelling
>user scenario---and a not uncompelling scenario for the software vendors.

>The "cheap PC" isn't so cheap when the built-in obsolescence means that
>it becomes hopelessly incompatible within at least a year and all the
>hardware and software has to be bought over and over again... the
>current paradigm. I don't believe families are ready to make big ticket
>computing a constantly recurring budget expense - just where is all the
>income for this supposed to come from when things like health insurance
>consume more and more? There is a saturation point that is being reached
>after the mass of consumers have bought their first big ticket system,
>and find out that it's not one-time, but constant annual expenditure.
>Other economic models become very competitive. Look how automobiles are
>leasd now rather than owned.

>[snip]

>>So although the "expert" computer users will always prefer to have their
>>own PC or workstation and look after themselves, the chances are that
>>there's a far greater number of users who will be prepared to pay for
>>access to a remotely managed service via a relatively simple network
>>computer.

>I suspect there will be a significant enough number of these to make
>NCs viable in the home.  I do not believe they will replace PCs as
>Ellison envisions.

>BTW, we have somewhat an experiment along those lines running right
>now.  It's called WebTV.  It hasn't exactly been a smashing success.
>The complaints I've heard have primarily revolved around resolution of
>the graphics and being locked in to one access provider.  Time will
>tell if it's a viable commercial alternative to the PC in the home.

> I don't want to wait two minutes for my NC to boot up each time it
> crashes...  In fact, I don't want any moving parts - not even a disk