What might have happened if the internet was not invented?

1 March 2010

The other week, an article written in 1995 by Clifford Stoll who — in short — could see no future for the internet, resurfaced.

While events obviously took a different course, Stoll’s words started me wondering about a world without an internet, and what our lives in 2010 might be like in the absence of this “most trendy and oversold community”, as Stoll put it.

And faster than Marty McFly and Doc Brown can conjure up an alternative timeline, here we are, a day in my life, in an un-wired, web-less, 2010.

The day begins like this, as always…

I go down to my letter box. There are three letters, a bill, two magazines, and the daily newspaper. A prominently placed front-page article boasts of a circulation increase of 0.1%, according to the latest readership audit.

Over breakfast I continue scanning the paper. The music industry is on the war path. Again. They can’t seem to shut down the groups who are bootlegging albums, by burning them onto DVDs and then selling them for — quite literally — a song on the street.

Before settling into the day’s work I quickly reply to the letters I’ve received, this is a breeze since nowadays people mostly only write letters that are a paragraph or two long. And given they now only cost five cents to send, literally millions are exchanged daily in Australia.

Getting down to work, I need to do some research

I work from home as a freelance writer. I work for a number of what are called street magazines, which are independently produced publications.

Sometimes several people operate them, sometimes they are the work of one person, an editor, who also relies on contributions from freelance writers.

But more on street magazines later.

I work using a computerised pad like device about the size of an A4 sheet of paper. The top section has a screen, while the lower part has a keypad.

I can send output to either a printer, via fax (the Victorian age technology has really stood the test of time), or save it as a text file to a floppy disc, which I can courier to whomever I’m writing for.

I have two article deadlines in two days time, and will need to spend a couple of hours at the local library doing some research for them.

Some of those street magazines are quality rags

Some of the more popular publications do really well, and thanks to their numerous sponsors, turn out top-shelf editions each week.

People like Jason Kottke, Karen Cheng, John Gruber, and Duncan Macleod who runs a zine called The Inspiration Room, are considered some of the big names in street magazine publishing.

What makes one street magazine more popular than another? I have no idea really. Quality content for sure, but I think luck has a lot to do with it also. That hasn’t stopped a large number of hopefuls from publishing street magazines on how to publish street magazines though.

Clearly these sorts of publications don’t bother the established newspapers though, who are after all, boasting of increases in their readership.

Producing your own street magazine is also easy

Self publishing really caught on with the advent of photo-copy print machines, and because they are so cheap and easy to operate, they can be found in most corner stores, newsagents, and supermarkets.

The whole process is incredibly simple. You write content using your computer’s word-processor, and then, when finished, export the file to a floppy disc. Then it’s away to the nearest photo-copy print machine.

You simply insert the floppy disc in the yellow slot, select from a number of print-out (or publishing) options, insert some money, and a few minutes later you are a published author, proudly holding your paperback — which is usually A5 size by the way — in your hands.

Sites that offer photo-copy printing services also allow you to place your publications in vending shelves, for a small fee. Your readers can then come along and pick up your latest work.

Cafes, bars, cinemas, and even public transport services, also have distribution facilities, so publishers with good advertising revenue can afford to widely circulate their magazines.

Instead of Facebook and social networks

The way you meet people in this world is truly weird.

Case in point. I was just over at the supermarket when a girl smiled and waved at me. This puzzled me as she didn’t look familiar, so I asked if I knew her from somewhere. She looked perplexed. “I was just wondering if you wanted to be friends,” she said.

Maybe it was the way I was looking at her, as if she had stepped out of a flying saucer or some such.

“Well, what do you expect me to do? Send you a photo, a bio, and a list of my friends to you, or something? Come on, what sort of world do you think we live in? The Star Trek universe?”

We ended up shrugging at each other and went our separate ways.

Coffee meetings and face to face networking

Today is when the weekly writers coffee group meets. We get together every week to chat, network, and compare notes.

One guy there today was in a very excitable mood though, “you know, this is far more than people sitting in a cafe chatting, exchanging information and tips, it’s a… I don’t know, er, community network, a like, social network, you know?”

A social network? That sounds kind of cool. We all nodded meaningfully, and resumed our random chatter.

Instead of Twitter, micro-blogging, and text messaging

On returning home from the coffee group, there are a stack of “slips” in my letter box.

Slips are a micro revolution in what I call — for want of a better term — instant communication. Basically people can send 150 character messages to each other via the postal service.

In Australia for example you pay $100 a month and can send up to 500 slips. To send one you call the Post Office service centre, where a communications consultant transcribes your message, and then faxes it to the post office nearest to where the recipient lives.

Slips are delivered through out the day, though not so often in rural areas, by people who drive around in very distinct red and blue striped vans.

The big advantage of slips is in their brevity. People often can’t be bothered making a phone call or writing a letter, especially if they only want to tell their friends what they had for lunch or where they were at a certain time, so slips really took off.

Designed to be recycled, and printed on fax paper with a special ink that fades after a few days, they have also proved a boon for postal services worldwide as a result of their popularity.

Advertising is also carried on the back of slips, making the concept a veritable gold mine.

The future of the future is still televised

I watch as someone called Steve Jobs walks onto a stage at a trade show with a pad like device very similar to what I use. Except it has what Jobs’ refers to as a dongle attached to it.

The “dongle”, which is about the size of a packet of chewing gum, is a wireless transmitting device that allow computers to talk to each other, and also share information and files. It will change the very essence of our lives, Jobs says.

We’ll be able to buy music and movie files through the dongle somehow, publish street magazines “online”, and even meet people the same way. Yeah, right.

Quite a few people in the audience are clearly excited by what he is saying. But not me. Such a thing will never catch on.

I flick the TV off, and as I take delivery of the day’s last batch of slips, prepare to spend the rest of the evening reading through the growing pile of street magazines that I subscribe to.

An “online” world?

I couldn’t possibly imagine living in such a place. If you disagree though, please send me a slip or letter. Good night.

Originally published Monday 1 March 2010, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.