The world at stage III, but the Net at stage II

This article proposes that there is a recognizable and predictable life cycle to important general enabling technologies such as the railroad, or the telephone, or the “Net.” This life cycle, in simple terms, consists of three stages: A stage of experimentation and development; a stage of societal concern with issues of equity and access, with concomitant regulations; and a stage when the emphasis shifts to efficiency and effectiveness, with concomitant emphasis upon competition and deregulation. The point of this life cycle analysis is that it illuminates the phenomenon that while the great previous general enabling technologies of the 19th and 20th centuries have all recently entered their third, deregulatory, stage, creating a Stage III mind‐set, the Net is only just entering its second, regulatory, stage. From this analysis, from the tension thereby revealed, some issues and paradoxes can be illuminated and understood, and others revealed for further analysis. The thrust of this article derives from the thesis that the Net is entering a very different phase in its likely life cycle than that of the society around it. An examination of some of the characteristics of this phenomenon will, we hope, be illuminating. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.