The Connection

The corporate entities I speak of aren't the corporations that actually produce computers, peripherals and software. Intel, MicroSoft, IBM and the like are actually TRYING to make products that they think people want. The villains I speak of are the Prodigies, AOLs and Compuserves. Add to that list is a growing number of media houses such as CNN, CNBC and the like, who lock out their own viewers, especially Commodore users, by nesting themselves in forums on on-line services. I have no problem with the forums. I do, however, have a problem when CNN tells me I have to have a subscription to CompuServe, which has Internet access, in order to communicate with them. Like a lot of other large organizations, CNN probably has its own Internet access independent of any on-line service. On their daily Talk Back America, they tell use an exclusive live CompuServe forum instead of live Email like CSPAN. They tell you to join CompuServe and type "GO CNN." Sorry, I'd rather go 64.

Let's face it. I'm a political animal. It used to be PC meant Personal Computer, then it meant Political Correctness. Now, and possibly forevermore, it's both. If it's not DOS or Mac, you're a weirdo. So it's no surprise that even though it's the American way to glean as much money as possible from all classes of people, PC actually overrides capitalism. It doesn't matter that there are millions of potential Commodore customers, they just don't want us! Qlink's demise was AOL refusing a heaping serving of Commodore money.

Prodigy absolutely refuses to honor anyone but the PC, not because of any nefarious motive, but because of ignorance. Just last week Fender and I pinned a Prodigy representative in the corner, explaining how Commodore money was as green as PC money. No matter how we explained that they could simply pay a Commodore programmer a few thousand dollars to code a Prodigy front end, the rep simply believed that a Commodore wasn't "fast enough" for Prodigy. Well DUH! What are people doing on-line that a Commodore can't handle? People are incredibly slow on-line, much slower than Prodigy or the Commodore. Modems are incredibly slow to computers. Even a 9600 baud modem is slower than a 1541, especially on a noisy line. So because of PC and ignorance, Commodore users are locked out yet again.

I spend about $10.00 per month on-line. Sometimes a whopping $17.00. So I'd rather spend a fraction of a cent to tell Rikki Lake's producers that she's stereotyping men than to open up my Visa card to CompuServe. I won't write a letter. I may be a political animal, but I'm an electric animal. I don't mind the computer end of writing a letter, but I hate printing, signing, folding, enveloping, addressing, stamping and finally mailing real letters. I'd much rather Email through GEnie, my Internet provider. If GEnie provided an Email to US Mail service, I'd use it, even if it cost 50 cents per letter! I already use their Email to FAX quite a bit. Email is less trouble, and if it gets lost in the Internet because I misaddressed it, the letter is bounced back so that I'll know.

I'm no commie, but I want these fat capitalist pigs and their deals to leave the market the way natural selection would have molded it. Hopefully there will be no centralized on-line services because it'll all be local, with too many businesses, like your local paper and news, ready and waiting to receive your modem for pennies?or free. While the traditional on-line services madly gobble up and shelter new customers from the freedom of Internet and knowledge, they stifle communication.

What I'd like to see is a program that allows green Internet surfers to choose from an English-speaking Big Dummy's Interface To The Internet. Pretty soon people will realize that it's cheap and the ultimate access channel. I hope the future arrives free of PC. Let the users forge the computer industry, not the fat cats who literally tell us what we want and need.