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In 1998 famed stock market prognosticator Paul Krugman gazed
lovingly into his foggy crystal ball and saw the future of the internet:
The
growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s
law’—which states that the number of potential connections in a network is
proportional to the square of the number of participants—becomes apparent: most
people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear
that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax
machine’s.
From Zero Hedge, via Maggie’s Farm.
8 comments:
Given Krugman's inaccuracy, even in his own field of economics, one would be forgiven for not believing a word or comment he has ever made.
I wonder if Krugman was even aware that Henry David Thoreau made a similar comment, about the telegraph, in 1854:
"Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end,… We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."
Very nice... thanks.
Ah, Paullie "The Beard" Krugman. Doesn't know what he doesn't know, and doesn't learn, either.
What Krugman and Thoreau didn't take into account, grandmothers and their want of news and now pictures of their grandkids.
James
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