From: apple!motcsd.csd.mot.com!lance@decwrl.dec.com (lance.norskog)
Subject: Re: A Calmer Post
Date: 29 Sep 91 02:12:02 GMT
Organization: Motorola CSD, San Jose CA



	[ I rant on about the importance of user control ]


My position here is extreme as an ideal and a bargaining point.

Our mass-media culture, primed with more television hype like the
ABC thing (no, I didn't see it), would cheerfully accept a 
Nintendo/TV-style VR delivery system as the only way it could be.
The concept that users would be in control of their own boxes,
in their own living rooms, is very subversive.  We're not talking
about a market of computer users who are accustomed to tending
their own machines.  We're talking about a market of people who
pay $500-$5000 for marvelous TV boxes and expect to watch any old
bilge the networks/cable/local access put in front of them.
We already have fascists running bulletin boards (ask Prodigy users 
who's in control!) and a market with far greater mass-market appeal
awaits with Nintendo-class VR technology.

Lance Norskog