» uk-netmarketing: roundup: 28-04-2000

Dotcoms...on a wing and a prayer?
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - April 28, 2000

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s comments on the greed of the dotcom world understandably grated with some of the lists’ subscribers. Andy Proyer posted, "Was anybody else extremely pissed off at the Easter speech from the Archbishop of Canterbury that basically said that we're all a bunch of good-for-nothing materialistic greedy bastards?"

Neil McIntosh responded, "… a more general point could be drawn from the good Archbishop's comments. Perhaps you don't dream of big IPOs and subsequent riches/fast cars/documentary interviews, but it seems a large portion of the dot.com industry is blinded by that vision. Hence a lot of half-baked ideas with no discernible means of making money, hyped beyond all proportion. All they're supported by is a frenzy of activity by net.slaves who sacrifice all – ‘all’ being a life, their health, families, partners, friends - in a bid to Get Rich Quick. Many enjoy it, but many endure it only because they think there's a pot of gold at the end of the slick of shit. I'm all for ‘judgemental old fucks’ coming along and questioning this industry - there's a lot to be questioned, especially in moral terms (let's start with exploitation and greed, for two). Is there a chance that there's more to life than the net?"

Leslie Bunder pointed out that the net isn’t just about commercial enterprises, he wrote, "... while there may be some jumping on the bandwagon to ‘get rich quick’, there are also many people and organisations providing very useful services to help people and society in general. Maybe the good Archbishop should have also looked at some of the very positive Web sites out there that are actually helping people, from those that provide counselling and support, through to those who provide resources for local communities."

Tim Hayward added his view on the discussion, "I have absolutely no sympathy for parsons of any denomination but I have to admit a sneaking admiration for what this one was saying. I know there are a lot of people in this business who are working themselves into the ground for little or no money at the moment but they're doing it for one of three reasons... a) They think they're going to get rich by cashing out for millions in short order, b) They think they're going to build a business built on answering a real consumer need, that's going to grow gently, strengthen organically and become moderately profitable in the medium to long term, c) They are stupid."

He continued, "Let's assume that anyone bright enough to be on UKNM is unlikely to be a c). Let's assume that anyone who's been exposed to any media in the last month realises that a) is statistically a worse bet than scratchcards as a credible method of revenue generation. So we're all b)s.... Not very sexy, is it? Not very 'New Economy'. That's the kind of business plan my Grandfather could have written in about 1920. Hardly surprising, really, that an ageing God-botherer in a frock managed to get the message when an entire generation of snake-hipped young 'entrepreneurs' missed the sodding point."

The announcement by BT of their high-speed ADSL service that launches on 1st July was warmly welcomed on the list. Unfortunately, they followed up by temporarily releasing personal details of some of the people who had registered on their website. Oops. Still, the rollout of ADSL will undoubtedly change the UK marketplace. The question is ... how much?

Cait Hurley emailed, "Now that this is actually happening at long last, perhaps it's time for a reminder of Tom Loosemore's comments re: fast download times. (The 'Loosemore's Law' discussion). To the effect that if any of us imagine that this is an open door to flash-tastic, 200k (hey, why not double it!) Index pages, we've got another thing coming. One's tolerance of slow downloading sites does not improve with faster connection times."

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