ADSL is not 'THAT' expensive!

alastair

So you see, like I said above, I'm not disagreeing with facts or figures, but just in a general way. The "tech downturn" hasn't touched me yet, and I live and work in tech every day. I just hope it'll continue that way. I dunno, maybe I'm just being annoyingly upbeat.

adam

No offence, but you might as well be sticking your head in the sand.
There is a 'downturn' with us right now. Check out the current state of the retail sector. The IT sectors problems are to a certain degree incidental, just a consequence of a broader malaise. The US/Multinationals are feeling the pinch and we in Ireland won't be able to wish it away. This was the case before NY, and is only worse now.

I've worked through the dark days of the eighties and pray things won't be as bad this time 'round. German interest rates may save the roof over your head, but the days of audi tt's and five quid red bull and vodkas must be nigh.

dahamsta

No offence, but you might as well be sticking your head in the sand.

None taken, you could be right.

There is a 'downturn' with us right now. Check out the current state of the retail sector. The IT sectors problems are to a certain degree incidental, just a consequence of a broader malaise. The US/Multinationals are feeling the pinch and we in Ireland won't be able to wish it away.

And no offense in your direction either, but I'm not blind. I know what's going on with the economy, I know it's in trouble, but it's a downturn, it's not a recession. Maybe it will continue into one, but there's also a chance it'll turn right back up again.

This was the case before NY, and is only worse now.

I realise that the WTC and the rest of the tragedy in the US has changed circumstances considerably, but I don't think it's a given that it's going to have the "world is going to end" affect some news sources are ranting on about ad nauseum. Cause and effect is mysterious - recession isn't the only effect that can come out of this cause.

Based on this conversation though, I reckon I'll have a poke around a few economists websites, because my curiosity is piqued now. So at least something good came out of it, eh?

adam

SkepticOne

One thing that has quietly continued to grow is e-commerce. There has been an unwinding of investment in dot.coms but the actual activity of selling over the Internet is still growing. It might slow down in a recession, of course, but the proportion of trade being done will increase. Many major developments have had a boom and bust associated with them. The 1929 crash was associated with movies, automobiles and radio. People pumped vast amounts of money into these stocks. All these continued to grow after the crash.

However, here, the government seems to have turned its back on the e-hub idea. Big mistake.

tHE vAGGABOND

There has been an unwinding of investment in dot.coms but the actual activity of selling over the Internet is still growing

Sorry, but thats just waffle..

How many dot.coms have to lay off people, and how many have to close b4 you wake up and smell the coffee..

Best recient exmple I can think of is that the US (and worlds) biggest data hosting company Exodus filed for bankrupcy yesterday. It has 40 data centres around america and the world, and hosts Ebay, Yahoo and a lot of the big names....

Dot.Com/internet industry is in big trouble, End of Story

dahamsta

vAGGABOND, let me give you a little history lesson. It's a short one, because it only spans five years or so:

Five years ago, US VC's invested in technology companies and technology stocks, most notably dotcom's, because it was plain and simple the cool thing to do, because they thought it was a way of making a quick buck. There was no forethought, and in many cases it was obvious that business plans were only given perfunctuary attention rather than the in-depth detailed examination required.

And a lot of them were right, the ones who got in early and left early, they made lots and lots of cash, and did exactly what investors were supposed to do. But as the Internet created more and more millionaires, and billionaires for that matter, you had a lot of very young and very naive people with a lot of green to throw about. And they did, they spent it like water, and more inportantly, like idiots.

They threw money at companies traditional investors wouldn't touch with a barge pole, with unproven business models and methods, and what was most worrying about that was that these people *knew* the companies in question had unproven ideas, because they were in the tech sector themselves. They pretended to themselves that the Internet was like bricks 'n mortar - if you throw enough money at it, it'll work.

But it won't work, will very rarely work, because the Internet doesn't work that way. Dotcom ideas need bricks 'n mortar backing and infrastructure, with very little exception. Anything that deals with hard goods needs stores, shipping mechanisms and people to move the stuff around. The exceptions were dotcoms that didn't need hard good infrastructures, like financial services, jobs, airline tickets, etc, all of which are still flying pretty high at the moment (except airline tickets, for understandable - and totally unrelated - reasons).

In other words, the sectors of the dotcom and Internet industry that are in trouble are that way because of crass stupidity, not because of the downturn. And in actual fact, it was that crass stupidity that initiated the downturn, and eggs it on in its downward spiral - the idiotic investors are chiefly to blame for their own downfall, and sadly for the downfall of companies and sectors that didn't deserve it. They lost money? I don't care, they were stupid with their money.

Exodus is an example of a company that could be considered as one that didn't deserve it, but in actual fact they're not, because they jumped on the dotcom bandwagon themselves, and abused it. They overinvested in employees and data centres, when it was obvious that it absolutely couldn't last. Exodus may have gone bust, but Verio hasn't, WebFusion hasn't, and thousands uplon thousands of small hosting companies across the US haven't, because they used their heads.

A pity more people didn't in the preceding five years. The worst thing of all about it is that they all had a warning shot fired across their bows, and hardly anybody took any notice. Anybody remember the NASDAQ taking a momentary dive last year, and then coming back up again? That was the warning shot. All people had to do was look at a flowchart for the NASDAQ right then and they were out, they were sorted. But people are greedy...

adam

tHE vAGGABOND

I know, I know, and your right, but so am I.

Exodus got too much money and expanded too quickly. Its a common story when young people have taken control of billion dollor business, popular in these last few years. Going back a few more years, Xtra Vision is another (non-internet) good example, they were the next big thing for ages, but over expanded and ran outa dosh, n’ went bust (got bought by Blockbuster or one of the big chains who now own them as far as I know)

We were all drawn into it. Everyone thought it would last forever, and the internet was the way forward. Some people may now claim that they knew all along, that it would go burst this quickly, but hindsight is easy after things have happened.

Saying selling over the internet may be growing may be technically true, but that is like saying Ireland is still booming. We may still have positive growth but its much, much smaller than it was, and the river of jobs has all but stopped (see my post in jobs section) - things are looking bad, and unless something wonderful happens we could be in for a rough ride. So technically we are still booming, you will find very few people to agree that things are ‘rosy’. In the same way, people such as me, buy things over the internet, but its not as many people as analysts thought, and they are not spending as much as people thought they would.

The WebVan disaster in the US shows that, while we have our little operation over here run by Superquinn. While it’s not as good and does not offer as much, too as many people as WebVan it will last for longer and may grow in time. Real time economics in the internet world..

This thread was started to get that idea into some people here with regard to ADSL and Eircom

Yurmasyurda

Hey vAGA,

I think you may have started an internet type vietnam war here, this will definitely be the never ending post where no one wins!

I think Eircom can keep their ADSL option until it's reasonably feasable, I would mainly be getting songs from other Irish users and with dual ISDN it's fine and no it's not that expensive with the discount package they offer. There is no way I will pay the installation charge or the ADSL modem charge and line rental :eek: .... emm I think not :rolleyes:

To put it bluntly Eircom can shove ADSL up their @rses... for now at least

My l33t hax0r 2p

PS. Note to Eircom

dahamsta

I know, I know, and your right, but so am I.

You are, of course you are, and I should have pointed out that this is a matter of philosophy, and of course economics, that we're probably simply not qualified to "decide upon". But we can still discuss it, and discussion is good. As Yurmasyurda points out, this is something that could easily turn into a flame war, but I don't want that, and I genuinely wasn't flaming you.

Some people may now claim that they knew all along, that it would go burst this quickly, but hindsight is easy after things have happened.

I know - or at least presume - you're not referring to me, but I would like to point out for the record that I'm not saying "I saw it all along". I did see it coming though, when the NASDAQ first took a dive. If I had tech stocks, I would have unloaded (some of) them slowly then. If I had them. I don't. I don't have a penny.

We may still have positive growth but its much, much smaller than it was, and the river of jobs has all but stopped (see my post in jobs section) - things are looking bad, and unless something wonderful happens we could be in for a rough ride. So technically we are still booming, you will find very few people to agree that things are ‘rosy’.

But it's still important that /we do still have positive growth/. No, things are by no means rosy, but - I'm trying to think of an old adage here but I can't think of one that applies - if you go into it with a negative attitude, negative things will invariably happen. Of course you can go in with a positive attitude too, and come out hurting even worse because you weren't expecting it, but that's the age old argument of optimism V pessimism, and if you're stupid enough to be insanely optomistic, well, you deserve it. You have to make a considered decision, you have to think carefully before you decide on a position. I'm just one of the ones who tends to take a more optimistic view. Hope for the best an' all that, don't let the bastards get you down.

In the same way, people such as me, buy things over the internet, but its not as many people as analysts thought, and they are not spending as much as people thought they would.

Again, this is true, but it's worked the other way too. At the beginning of the dotcom boom, "analysts" came up with totally loony figures for the number of people who would shop online. They never seemed to give a thought to the older generation who simply wouldn't be able to do it, or weren't trusting enough to do it (and in many cases, rightly so). And they got a shock, because it's only people like you and me shopped online, because we knew what we were doing and we weren't stupid enough to buy from disreputable merchants (where others did, and got screwed, and never shopped online again).

And then they revised those figures way, way down, when they realised the positively enormous mistake they made. But eCommerce is now growing beyond those revised figures - people are starting to shop online as a matter of course, mostly because of the competence and intelligence of people like Amazon, and Tesco. eCommerce is now in growth, and that's partly because of the "analysts" incompetence.

But it's those self-same analysts that are now telling us that we're in trouble, we're all going to be living out of dumpsters in a years time. And I'm supposed to believe them now? Well, I'm sorry, but I *do* learn from my mistakes, and although, as I said, I can see the terrible state we're in right now, I'm not 100% convinced that this is it, that this is the recession. I guess when I *am* living out of a dumpster, that's when I'll believe it. Is that bad? I don't think so.

The WebVan disaster in the US shows that, while we have our little operation over here run by Superquinn. While it’s not as good and does not offer as much, too as many people as WebVan it will last for longer and may grow in time. Real time economics in the internet world..

First of all, WebVan wasn't a disaster by any manner of means. A disaster implies something terrible happened for reasons out of their control, and that's not true at all in WebVan's case. (I'm annoyed now, because I threw out a tirade I'd previously written about WebVan last only last night.) Ultimately, WebVan - and its investors - is responsible for WebVan's demise, and good riddance to them.

Tesco is another story entirely though (is SuperQuinn part of Tesco, or did they avoid the mighty multinational's clutches?). Tesco learned from WebVan's mistakes, and they showed such competence that they didn't make those mistakes /in a completely different marketplace/. That's some feat of business intelligence when you think about it.

And where are Tesco now? They're consulting with US companies on how to take their groceries online, they're providing the tech infrastructure to do it. So in essence a European company has taken an idea that the Americans simply weren't able to implement, fixed it up and made it work in the UK, and now they're selling it right back to them.

To throw your own quote back at you - real time economics in the Internet world". We can do it. We just need to be patient, and not rush into things. And that includes making decisions about the world economy. And going into war of course.

This thread was started to get that idea into some people here with regard to ADSL and Eircom

Well, hopefully it worked.

adam