Coming of age: January 13, 1997 issue of New Thinking

January 13, 1997 New Thinking:
Coming of age

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January 13, 1997

Coming of age

By Gerry McGovern

Internet growth might well be in for a major slowdown over the next couple of years.

Isn’t the number of computers in households a natural block to Internet penetration? Okay, you have web-TV on the way. But you still need to buy the box and the keyboard. Talking of keyboards, isn’t the number of people who can type a natural block to Internet penetration? For a lot of people a keyboard is like a foreign language.

The Internet is really about simple things. Like me telling you something. Like you selling me something. But it is still a very basic fact that to do these simple things requires complex equipment.

My brother is a teacher, and yet he is very apprehensive about learning how to use a computer. This apprehension is widespread throughout the adult middle-class, and very much so throughout the working class.

People are afraid of computers. Adults are ashamed that they don’t know how to use them. To buy a computer is one step. To get connected to the Internet is a bridge too far for many in 1997, and quite probably in 1998 and 1999.

Therefore, while the Internet will broaden its user base over the next few years, it will be embraced by the wider society much less quickly than it has been by those who are already technology-literate.

This has many implications for the type of marketing that will occur on the Internet. The product range which will succeed will be largely limited to this higher income, technology literate class.

Companies who need to sell their products to the mass market to make full profit, will need to view the Internet as a vehicle which penetrates a niche of that market. This may or may not be enough to make a comprehensive Internet presence viable.

But the Internet is a great communicator. And here is an advantage which may bring in people who might otherwise have been technologically averse. The old, the lonely, parents at home, those who have physical disabilities, those who have special needs not locally satisfied, may bridge their fear of technology because of the warm possibility of reaching out online. Shown as this great new communicator, the Internet might well be accepted faster than otherwise expected.

If, however, the Internet comes up against a wall in the general society over the coming years, there are more than marketing issues at stake. It will be an environment of the elite. Yet it will still have to reflect the overall temperament of society as a whole.

Pornography, crime, hackers, will strike fear into the minds of those who are on the outside. In the twilight between the Internet becoming a fundamental part of society and it being seen as a playground and free-for-all for society’s elite, society may well hit back in fear and resentment. Politicians may well capitalize on these emotions to further their political careers by bringing in draconian legislation.

Thus, there is an economic imperative for those who wish to thrive on the Internet to both work for appropriate regulation and to encourage as quickly as possible the take-up of the Internet by the wider population.

Gerry McGovern

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While the Internet will broaden its user base over the next few years, it will be embraced by the wider society much less quickly than it has been by those who are already technology-literate.