The Internet as we know it will not be around all that much longer.
In the future, your television, your computer, and your telephone will merge into one "supermachine" which will access the Internet. The beginnings are out there. Take the Philips Magnavox WebTV box. WebTV is a box designed to cheaply and effectively connect your television to the Internet. Sounds like a great idea. You're probably thinking that WebTV is the futuristic "supermachine" here ahead of its time. Well, it's not even close.
There are a plethora of problems with WebTV. First of all, WebTV uses conventional phone lines to connect to the Internet. Conventional phone lines, while faster than they were 25 years ago, are still painfully slow when it comes to the transfer of data across the Internet. While this slowness is not as noticeable sitting in front of your computer, it becomes shockingly apparent as you watch web pages appear on your television screen. Television is an "instant-gratification" media: you don't have to wait to see what you want. Waiting in front of your TV in silence is not what people want to deal with. The second major problem with WebTV is that it is not fully interactive. You cannot upload files through WebTV or store the files you have downloaded on any sort of hard drive. What good is a web browser without the ability to upload or store web pages?
While WebTV has many logistical problems, it is a solid foundation from which to build into the future. With the advent of the cable modem, we are one step closer to "instant-gratification" web browsing. The cable modem connects users to the Internet over fiber optic cable lines at blazing speeds. Cable modems transfer files at 3.5 megabytes/second. Compare that to the average modem, which transfers files at 56 kilobits/second. A cable modem is hundreds of times faster; fiber optic cable is cheap. So what's the catch? The price of a cable modem runs around $1,000 and the preparations and monthly fees associated with it push the price over the edge. To boot (no computer pun intended), many rural areas still have conventional coaxial cable lines; not the fiber optic lines required to support a cable modem.
But all is not lost. With the current rate of technological invention, we should see the "supermachine" on the horizion as we travel into the next millenium. The foundation has been laid. Let's build the house. Keep the future in mind as you cruise the Internet. The best is yet to come.