Reflections of a ModemJunkie
                       by Leonard Grossman
     
     This may be the greatest moment in the history of online
communications.  Right now internet access is relatively cheap
and, for those who have enough interest in computers to read this
newsletter, it is relatively easy.  And it may not last.

     Basic internet accounts range upwards from $10 a month for a
shell account to slightly more than twice that amount for full
access.  With the advent of new software utilities like Slipknot,
which enables Web access even from a shell account almost
everyone can afford to get online.  And right now the internet
remains, for the most part the relatively _open_ system that has
made it such an efficient and effective means of sharing
information and infotainment.  But both cheap access and the very
openness of the system are under attack.

     In addition to the local and national internet access
providers like MCS, InterAccess, Netcom, WWA, the older large
commercial online services like Compuserve, Prodigy and America
Online (AOL) are really getting into the act. The competition is
hot.  On some usenet groups the current joke is that some of us
have received enough promotional discs containing the front end
software for America On Line (AOL) that we could back up Win95
(or even OS/2).  It seems a new disk is in the mail every few
weeks.  Every few days one of the major services announces
additions to its internet services.

     Why are the older providers working so hard to hook us now?
Because Win95 is now scheduled for release on the 24th of August
of this year.  Whether or not it is actually released on time its
release will be one more factor in the great sea change in the
world of online communications which will occur in the next year
or so.  Just as almost every machine sold today has Prodigy or
AOL already installed, as well as DOS and Windows, within a few
months every new machine will contain Win95 and with it the
online software for the Microsoft Network (MSN).  When you boot
up Win95, the MSN icon will be waiting on the desktop. Just click
and you can register online (be sure to have your credit card
handy.)

     The advent of MSN will provide incredible competition to the
old providers.  But, how will all this effect delivery of
services?  First, the major services do not yet have wide
availability of fast modem connections.  Second, the big services
charge by the minute or by the message while most access
providers charge by the month or even longer periods except for
the most basic accounts.  Even if you can get high speed access
to one of the big boys you are not home free.  Compu$erve charges
even higher rates for higher speed access.  

     On the other hand, with the major service providers, the end
user doesn't have to do much more to get her machine ready than
to install the provider's access software and log on.  The
options will all be on the provider's server.  With direct access
it's usually up to the user to assemble a suite of software that
will do everything the user desires.  This method offers greater
freedom but can be fraught with frustration.  

     Loss of freedom is what is really threatened by the
encroachment of the major providers and MSN.  The user is forced
into their selection of internet clients, their interface and
their options.  But there are two greater threats to the
internet. 

     The big threat everyone worries about is censorship.  With
Congress pandering to the lowest common denominator and the
squeaky wheel, there is real risk that in an attempt to prevent
the one or two percent of the online world who are children from
access to pornography, or to silence the distribution of
unpopular and perhaps even hateful literature and ideas, it is
possible that the net itself will be destroyed.  The entire
concept of the net is open architecture and easy access to
systems and servers.  

     Every firewall, every barrier, every "protection" built into
the system reduces its effectiveness as a medium of
communication.  What a pleasant surprise to hear Newt Gingrich's
comments on this issue.    (I feel better, now,  about that
"NEWT" icon appearing on my screen every time I load Chameleon.)

     Here, my objections to the big providers may prove to be
wrong headed, for if they can provide front end software which
will permit the end user (read "parents") with the  ability to
restrict access on the user end, we may have the best of both
words.  Open systems with user control.  Ahh fantasy land.

     But the real threat to the system isn't from the censors but
from a new breed of on line entrepreneurs.  After all what, they
say,  is the net for if not to make money.  That last statement
would have been anathema a few months ago.  Remember the outcry
when a lawyer spread his advertising over the net.  That seems
long ago indeed.

     Just a few months ago, virtually (no pun intended) every
site on the World Wide Web could be easily accessed.  Just click
on a URL (Universal Resource Locator) and within a few seconds
you were connected.  It was fascinating.  More amazing was the
number of commercial publications which offered free and
unfettered access.  Time Magazine, Ziffnet, the New York Times.  

     But slowly that is changing.  It seems they were just
getting us hooked.  While few sites actually charge for access,
there are a number of sites which require registration and
passwords.  No longer can I merely click.  Now, to read the NandO
Times, an excellent source of national and international news, I
have to get down my little card file and look up my user name and
password.  At least I didn't have to provide a credit card number
like I did for MSN.  (There is no charge yet.  I guess they just
want to be ready.)  

     Commercial charges for online information are nothing new.
Lexis and WestLaw have long charged outrageous sums for access to
what is essentially public information.  But now there are
commercial sites on the Web itself.  Paid subscriptions required.

     There is no free lunch, but for the moment there is a very
inexpensive ride.  Who knows what it'll be like next year.

A FINAL THOUGHT

     It's a gorgeous summer day.  Temperature in the 70's. 
Gentle breeze blowing.  It's time to let the modem cool off and
get some fresh air.  And I'm sitting at the keyboard writing this
column.  
     Actually it isn't that bad.  We just returned from a 5 day
weekend in  Michigan --  early breakfasts,  long hikes before
lunch.  Long naps in the afternoon, with a good novel to fall
asleep over.  And then a walk on the pier or a good dinner in the
evening.   No keyboard, no modem.  Just good conversation and
that novel by one of my favorite authors, Richard Powers, whose
"Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance," blew me away a number of
years ago.  

     I should have been forewarned.  Even the dust jacket makes
it clear that the new book, "Galatea 2.2"  ((Farrar Straus
Giroux, NY) involves a confrontation with a computer--an attempt
to enable a computer to compete with real students in a "Turing
Test" and pass a masters degree exam in literature.  Real danger
lurked when I read the words with which the book opened, "It was
like so, but wasn't.  I lost my thirty-fifth year. . . ."  
Within a few pages we learn that the narrator had free access to
what he calls the world web.  I've lost at least a year that way
too.

     Just published, the book is set in that time, seemingly
light years ago, but really not much more than a year, before the 
advent of the graphic browser, but still the author/narrator's
excitement mounts as page after page he describes the addictive
delights of  connecting to machines all over the face of the
earth.  "The web: yet another total disorientation that became
status quo without anyone realizing it."

     The novel is much more than technobabble, it is a
fascinating tour of the subject of intelligence, literature and
love.  Logoff, pick up a copy and a tall cool one.  Sit out on
the deck and enjoy.

Copyright 1995 Leonard Grossman
grossman@mcs.com
leonard.grossman@syslink.mcs.com