Keeping Off the Web
it’s a bit of a truism for those of us deeply involved in the World Wide Web: all information is migrating to the web. It isn’t true, of course. There are entire classes of information that are not being migrated to the web, and never will be.
A small business selling very upscale, exclusive items on the basis of personal service, word of mouth, and repeat customers might quite reasonably decide to stay off the web completely. A business like that chooses not to compete on the basis of anything the web offers — convenience, speed, availability, volume, price, and so on. The web is quite the opposite of what a business like that needs and wants.
There is a particular business I have in mind in this regard, and neither it nor any similar business will ever be on the web. Some kinds of information are purposefully kept more private than the web allows.
It’s very hard to know how much of this kind of information there is, but I suspect it’s substantial. Anything that someone has a good reason not to “open up” is likely to be kept off the web (as long as there are no equally good reasons to make it available).
However, using computers to create, store, and access information has enormous advantages. And it seems to be human nature to think in terms of “us” (the good/informed/priviledged/allowed group) and “them” (everybody else).
That’s why there’s going to be more than one Internet and more than one Web, or something like it.
