Pylimitics

Thirty-one years ago, in 1994, the Internet existed but not everybody knew that yet. Even those of us who did know about it didn’t always have an convenient connection; computers had only barely begun to be portable, and you certainly weren’t going to access much on that telephone in your home that had a handset connected by a long, coiled bunch of wires (those coiled wires never got the credit they deserved; they actually worked brilliantly). 

Nevertheless, “the Internet” was popular enough that marketing and political speech got their filthy paws on it and some conference-room drone in a cheap suit came up with a corporate-speak term: the information superhighway. Not everybody knew what the Internet was, but nobody knew what the information superhighway was supposed to mean. That was on purpose; the whole idea behind both marketing and political speech is to say things that you can’t really pin down precisely, but tend to give a lot of people good feelings because they just naturally assume what the meaning is, and connect it to vague ideas about good outcomes. This is particularly effective when marketing associates the new meaningless term with stuff you know you like (good food, looking fashionable, having friends, people liking you a lot; could be anything). Politically, the implied association is probably with a group you feel like you’re part of, or a charismatic individual you want to feel closer to. 

One thing about new marketing and political terms, though: they don’t fool everybody. There are at least two sorts of people who aren’t fooled: those who just don’t give a flying fig about whatever area the term covers, and those who know enough about it to see how the scam artist is manipulating the trick. Many of the members of the second group see the other connections of the new term, and how it’s usually a step on the way to somebody making a ton of cash off the moderately interested or misinformed public. 

That’s the way the information superhighway was understood by some back in the 90s. It was an implicit suggestion about higher speed connections and a system that was accessible and easy to use for everybody. And, although this was very subtle, with most of the dangers engineered away, just like driving on a superhighway is actually safer than operating on surface roads, even though faster.

The November 1 issue of Wired magazine published a short Q&A (it would be a few more years before these were called FAQs) about the information superhighway, in the form of answers to how it differed from the Internet. The Wired writers were good, but they didn’t come up with this; it was “posted anonymously to the Net.” And it nailed one thing more than any: greed was just starting to take an interest in this stuff, and the capitalists were on their way to screw everybody in new ways. It point out that the information superhighway would be:

• Just like the Internet, but a lot more expensive and with commercials. 
• Just like cable TV, but a lot more expensive and with commercials.
• Just like renting videos (1994 remember), but a lot more expensive and with commercials.
• Just like telephone calls, but a lot more expensive and with commercials.

‘Nuff said.

Shoutout to Cory Doctorow for unearthing that artifact.