Ed Hansberry
01-07-2003, 11:00 PM
<a href="http://www.shirky.com/writings/zapmail.html">http://www.shirky.com/writings/zapmail.html</a><br /><br />Clay Shirky has written another article this month, this one on how the telecos are once again being squeezed out of providing value added services because they fail to understand how WiFi and Voice Over IP works and how you, with your $100 piece of hardware, are doing the squeezing.<br /><br />This has already happened once - to FedEx in the 80's with <a href="http://www.printerworks.com/Catalogs/CX-Catalog/CX-Fed-Ex.html">ZapMail</a>. FedEx would install ZapMail printers (you and I call them fax machines) and a ZapMail networking system (you and I call that the phone line) to magically send your documents to other people in just 2 hours (you and I do that in 2 minutes.) They didn't think their target customer would figure this out but would gleefully fork over $3 per page to let FedEx do it for them. Instead, we went out in droves buying machines for $500 each and began sending millions of pages for pennies each.<br /><br />Now the telephone companies are scrambling to offer ultra-cool IP services for your phone system, all the while assuming we are too stupid to do it on our own. Read Clay's article then come back here and discuss it. Is he right?