Talk about Disruptive technology(andrewacove.posterous.com)
andrewacove.posterous.com
Talk about Disruptive technology
http://andrewacove.posterous.com/talk-about-disruptive-technology
2 comments
Actually, I read Fred's post a few moments before writing this. It was one of a few sources of inspiration.
And that's a cool suggestion, applying the TOMS shoe one-for-one model.
And that's a cool suggestion, applying the TOMS shoe one-for-one model.
In order for a decentralized information network to take off it has to have a killer app other than the one that the activists like. Most people don't care about privacy in practice. They say that they do if you ask them but they won't do a damn thing to protect it. The same with freedom of speech.
In order for a technology to become mainstream there has to be an obvious, immediate benefit.
Piracy comes to mind, but the ISP's haven't cracked down enough yet for that to be a major enough issue.
Bandwidth caps could also be a prod, but I don't think people would be any more annoyed with those than the inevitably higher latency (between geographically disparate people) of a distributed network.
And then there's the bootstrapping problem.
In order for a technology to become mainstream there has to be an obvious, immediate benefit.
Piracy comes to mind, but the ISP's haven't cracked down enough yet for that to be a major enough issue.
Bandwidth caps could also be a prod, but I don't think people would be any more annoyed with those than the inevitably higher latency (between geographically disparate people) of a distributed network.
And then there's the bootstrapping problem.
What about natural disasters? certainly these sorts of technologies would be useful in Katrina, tsunami, Haiti-type situations, no? Maybe the sort of things that could just be air-dropped over a wide area. Ideally, you'd want the components to be redundant and sufficiently cheap as to be disposable.
The nice thing about this type of technology is that you have enough paranoid people in the US to market to initially (assuming you're in the US or that the US is easy for you to sell to, and no, I'm not trying to be condescending of people that are paranoid). Another interesting bit could be to donate one piece of the technology to opposition movements in countries run by dictators, when somebody buys your devices. How you'd smuggle it is one question, but I'm sure there are NGOs that would gladly help you.
Fred Wilson might be interested in it too: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2158529