[governance] FW: <nettime> Adieu Minitel, Adieu!

[Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond]

On 01/07/2012 12:32, michael gurstein wrote :
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nettime-l-bounces at mail.kein.org
> [mailto:nettime-l-bounces at mail.kein.org] On Behalf Of Patrice Riemens
> Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 5:45 PM
> To: nettime-l at kein.org
> Subject: <nettime> Adieu Minitel, Adieu!
>
> Today is the last day in service of France's "bogus brother of the Internet"
> (Le Monde), that strange square box called the Minitel, launched in
> 1981/1982.
>
> The Minitel has been object of much derision once Internet use became
> (relatively) widespread outside of France, yet it did antedate the 'public
> Internet' by at least 15 years, and, contrary to a commonly held belief, the
> Minitel did not at all hamper the diffusion of the Internet in France after
> it had really taken of (say, by the second half of the nineties).
>
>

Thanks for the pointer to the article. It was a product that was way
past its shelf date.
I beg to differ re: hampering the diffusion of Internet in France. In
the early to mid nineties I had several meetings with high ranking
officials at France Telecom (who shall remain nameless because I still
hold them in shame for their responses) where I had all the trouble in
telling them that the Internet was the future. The... idiots... I had in
front of me had put all their faith in VideoText and future versions of
the Minitel, telling me that the populace was not ready to use full
computers which were too expensive, too complicated, too "American" for
residential use. In short, Internet was "too American" and,
"sacrebleu",  people would need to learn English to use it. Furthermore,
I had no answer to their question, quote verbatim: "With the minitel, we
have a pay for use business model that works. With this... Internet
thing, everything is free, so how will you be able to make one Franc
with something that's free? It simply will not work."

As a result, France Telecom and its Global One Alliance partners never
became the leading drivers for the Internet in Europe. By being too
focussed on state actors and its then visionless TelCos, Europe missed
the boat when the wave hit a few months later. The "Grand Projets" in
the 60s and 70s, most of them having been a success, led to a generation
of politically inclined, complacent managers running the show in Europe
in the late eighties, with visionaries leaving for Silicon Valley.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Kind regards,

Olivier

-- 
Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
http://www.gih.com/ocl.html




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