Andy Kessler gives an interesting analysis of the importance of "owning the pipe" (or not) on the media economy. In Media 2.Uh-Oh Part 1: Pipe, he writes:
... Yup, and then the Internet came along. Move along - no scarcity here. Cisco routers send packets around to where folks want them - no moguls needed.
Market entrepreneurs used the chaos of packet switching to deliver text and pictures to websites. Then bandwidth got cheap enough to move music around crumbling record labels control of distribution. It's hard out there for a ... And now bandwidth is even cheaper and more plentiful and its time for video to move around this wild and wholly network. Those pipes are now coffins. The moguls will die within them.
But therein lies the problem. Senator Ted Stevens notwithstanding, the way the Internet is architected, there ain't no pipes to control. No "end to end" pipes anyway. ...
Link: Andy Kessler.
Then, in More Evidence That Media 2.0 May Be Less Profitable Than Media 1.0, Scott Karp writes:
... Andy put his finger on the deep structural problem that I’ve previously highlighted: the loss of control. Web 2.0 works great as an ideology, but maybe not so great as the basis for a media economy. Less control = less profit. ...
Link: Publishing 2.0.
A complete oil transport system includes not just pipes, it includes storage for all that petroleum until it's accessed to make fuel. I'll link to Kessler's part 2 when it's posted.
Update 14 Oct. 2006:
Kessler has now posted Media 2.Uh-Oh Part 2: Layer Cake. Link: Andy Kessler. And I missed an earlier Intro. Link: Andy Kessler.
More on this topic from Terry Heaton in, The web's impact on overall ad rates. Link: The PoMo Blog. --Dennis
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