All this talk about ADSL, xDSL, and cable modems has gotten me
thinking, which has gotten me depressed. I just realized today that
the Internet is never going to seem any faster than it does right
now. Users have an amazing ability to fill available bandwidth. All
the faster connections mean is that instead of a web page having a
100k .JPG file, it will have a 5 MB video clip that automatically
starts running when you load the page. Internet phone applications
will catch on even more, as will full-motion live video.
I should have seen this coming sooner. My first hard drive was a
$900 ten megabyte external unit, and it filled up quicker than I
would have imagined. Ditto for the 40Mb, the 120MB, and the 2.1GB.
Now that hard drive prices have really begun to plummet, DVD-ROMs are
becoming popular, with a capacity of 17GB. Imagine how much
drive space games and even office applications are going to take up
in a year or so.
Is it just me, or are the numbers just getting bigger, while
capability stays pretty much the same?
Scott
(Who remembers when a bulletin board was some guy's Apple IIe with a
300 baud modem and a floppy in each drive.)
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