Internet Access: Flat Fee Vs. Pay-per-use :: essays research papers

Internet Access: Flat Fee vs. Pay-Per-Use Most Internet users are either not charged to access information, or pay a low-cost flat fee. The Information SuperHighway, on the other hand, will likely be based upon a pay-per-use model. On a gross level, one might say that the payment model for the Internet is closer to that of broadcast (or perhaps cable) television while the model for the Information SuperHighway is likely to be more like that of pay-per-view T.V. "Pay-per-use" environments affect user access habits. "Flat fee" situations encourage exploration. Users in flat-fee environments navigate through webs of information and tend to make serendipitous discoveries. "Pay- per-use" situations give the public the incentive to focus their attention on what they know they already want, or to look for well-known items previously recommended by others. In "pay-per-use" environments, people tend to follow more traditional paths of discovery, and seldom explore totally unexpected avenues. "Pay-per-use" environments discourage browsing. Imagine how a person's reading habits would change if they had to pay for each article they looked at in a magazine or newspaper. Yet many of the most interesting things we learn about or find come from following unknown routes, bumping into things we weren't looking for. (Indeed, Thomas Kuhn makes the claim that, even in the hard sciences, real breakthroughs and interesting discoveries only come from following these unconventional routes [Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962]). And people who have to pay each time they use a piece of information are likely to increasingly rely upon specialists and experts. For example, in a situation where the reader will have to pay to read each paragraph of background on Bosnia, s/he is more likely to rely upon State Department summaries instead of paying to become more generally informed him/herself. And in the 1970s and 1980s the library world learned that the introduction of expensive pay-per-use databases discouraged individual exploration and introduced the need for intermediaries who specialized in searching techniques. Producers vs. Consumers On the Internet anyone can be an information provider or an information consumer. On the Information SuperHighway most people will be relegated to the role of information consumer. Because services like "movies-on-demand" will drive the technological development of the Information SuperHighway, movies' need for high bandwidth into the home and only narrow bandwidth coming back out will likely dominate. (see Besser, Howard. "Movies on Demand May Significantly Change the Internet", Bulletin of the American Association for Information Science, October 1994) Metaphorically, this will be like a ten-lane highway coming into the home and only a tiny path leading back out (just wide enough to take a credit card number