Mark Cuban wrote Friday that he believes the internet to be “dead and boring.”
Cuban argues that:
“Some of you may not want to admit it, but that’s exactly what the net has become. A utility. It has stopped evolving. Your Internet experience today is not much different than it was 5 years ago….Web 2.0 is proof that the Internet has stopped evolving and stabilized as a platform. Its very very difficult to develop applications on a platform that is ever changing. Things stop working in that environment. Internet 1.0 wasn’t the most stable development environment. Todays Internet is stable specifically because its now boring.(easy to avoid browser and script differences excluded)”
He goes on to state that “The days of the Internet creating explosively exciting ideas are dead. They are dead until bandwidth throughput to the home reaches far higher numbers than the vast majority of broadband users get today.”
On a weekend where a Wall Street Journal article explaining the LOLcats phenomena is a leading story on Techmeme, there could certainly be some argument in favor of the notion that all that is old is new again, and that the web has become at least a little boring. Ultimately you can judge. Read Mark Cubans full post here, and let us know what you think in the poll below.
- No: you’re kidding, right?
- Yes: there is nothing new
- Only on Weekends
Total Votes: 3886
Started: August 25, 2007
(image credit: I Can Has Cheezburger)
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If I had a few billion dollars to blow on private jets, and basketball teams… I guess the internet would be pretty damn boring.
It’s amazing how much attention people pay to everything you say (no matter how ignorant) when you have money.
lol - the internet is Not boring;
but if you endlessly spend time on it, then yes…like all things, it can then.
@2, that goes w/o say. if you have money - then that means you’ve made it, so of course what you say people will listen.
would you listen to someone who says all these things, but has nothing to show for it? of course not, you’d think he’s full of it
Mark Cuban is incredibly entertaining. I love that dude.
I think his follow up post on his blog made a lot more sense then the original comment in the interview that spurred on the whole discussion. In my opinion, he’s not really arguing that the internet is dead and boring (that is more for title shock value than anything else) but rather that if bandwidth and internet technology, including huge ISP’s, refuse to grow at a fast enough rate, people won’t be able to keep pushing the envelope in terms of creativity, and things will get stagnant.
He’s absolutely correct, and I’ve been saying the same thing for a year or two myself.
Stateless applications, specifically HTML over HTTP, has run it’s course. The internet is not HTTP. The internet is not a web browser viewing a web page. There should be much more to it. Where is our rich application experience? AIR has provided a major breakthrough with that, but they’ve also done so with the expectations that it must work over HTTP. Get rid of that limitation and use your minds, adobe. I do applaud their effort, though.
http://FTP. Gopher. IRC.
Why does flash not have it’s own protocol and browsing experience? Silverlight?
Why aren’t webpages delivered precompiled?
The problem is that we move too slow. Our tools are not yet to the point where OS application development is speedy. It’s still a long, drawn out process.
We have to get back to the basics and rethink alternate paths on the internet before true innovation can happen.
I agree wholeheartedly.
The Internet is boring when you are a has-been who didn’t contribute much to society. And by the way, money can’t buy you can NBA championship.
Mark Cuban’s comments come from a place that thinks that current internet broadband in America is insufficient to deliver multimedia entertainment. I think the problem he outlines doesn’t take into account adequate time shifting. I’m able to download more audio and video entertainment for me to enjoy each day than I can handle (if I intend to be at all productive that day) on my AT&T $10 DSL.
It’s all about time-shifting, though. If you’re talking about instantaneous on-demand streaming HD entertainment, like Cuban is, yes, the internet completely blows chunks. If you’re a normal consumer like most of us, and are able to hack together iTunes and a home-made PVR, you can grab more content than any of the Jones’s and still live a rich and fulfilling life.
To understand Mark, you just have to follow his money trail.
Agree with Jimmy. Innovation has been stifled. But for now, I guess I’ll have to go outside and talk to some real people to get my fix.
God what a blow hard. Given the fact he made his money on the internet. Dont bite the hand that feeds you, but hey the rich can say what they want and people will believe it unfortunately.
Says the guy that has invested in a dying technology.
agree with jimmy, the stateless document-oriented paradigm, with its straight-from-the-70s networking, limited graphical abilities, non-native integration with multimedia…its been fun but you can already see the frustration and proprietary solutions (silverlight, apollo) moving forward.
i hate to beat a hackneyed cliche with secondlife and WoW, but definitely the cutting edge for user attention and monetization is in immersive environments with deep multimedia features, rich networking (multiple client threads controllable by scripts), stateful protocols, etc. tell me how i can do this with svg and/or canvas….the web model has been stretched to amazing limits, but its hit the wall. smart people have seen this since 2005.
any such future environment will trivially embed a web rendering model as a fallback. you will still be able to get stock quotes in WoW.
well its “boring” because everything has been done already. Just look at techcrunch…social network after social network. I blame google for that…it turned people from wanting to invent into wanting to monetize.
Would you spend a year developing an application, if you could just copy someone else’s, slap some ads and get a few million dollar valuation?
Frankly I think right now we are in a plateu…we’ll get a big boost when more of the country is on faster connections. And by big boosts I mean adapting to new technologies. I mean when that will come out we’ll have a gold rush of people trying to put the new technology to everything in sight.
But personally I’m waiting for virtual reality to finally get created. Once we have the bandwidth…someone will invest into a Virtual Reality hardware…and once a VR universal world is created, we’ll see people working on transforming the things from the daily life onto the internet. But I think we are 5-10 years away from it at the current rates.
Someone to tell him to check out Facebook.
Their website is http://www.facebook.com
He should give it a try.
Sounds like he is just a little out of touch.
Cuban read the markets correctly and sold his company at a ridiculous price. Granted the technology (or bandwidth) was not even capable during his time - I see him as a person who knows when to get in early and profit.
As for his vision on what will happen - I would not bet on him.
@Jason- if you RTA you will =notice that he says, “Facebook is _not_ the internet.”
I feel sort of queasy now, defending Mark Cuban, but despite not agreeing with some of his statements over th past few years and overlooking the attention grabbing headline, this article does serve purpose to suggest that the access to the internet in this country is going to be the limiting factor to the amount of development and innovation which can occur here. In coutnries which have a greater availablity of bandwidth than the US there will be a continued expansion of services and innovation, such as streaming television via Tha IntarWeb.
“Few people’s actual throughput to their homes have increased more than 5mbs in the past 5 years, and few people’s throughput (if you dint understand the difference between throughput and the marketed downstream speeds your read from your ISP, you should) to their homes will increase more than 10mbs in the next 5 years. That’s not enough to define a platform that allows really smart people to come up with groundbreaking ideas.
In fact, if you index the expected growth in bandwidth consumption by applications that are heavy LAST MILE bandwidth users (as opposed to the Internet backbone where there is plenty of bandwidth but consumers cant get to it) vs the actual increase in LAST MILE bandwidth available to the home, our net effective throughput to the home could decline over the next few years. The Internet is like a highway. There is plenty of room for everyone to go as fast as the throughput will let you go, that is until the traffic forces everyone to slow down.”
Well, DUH!
If the Major television companies let that happen they would be out of business. Ever heard of lobbyists?
He thinks that way because it’s too hard to get sold for $5B these days
Why in the hell are we worrying about things like stateful protocols or whether or not the technology of the Internet has become “stable.” WHO CARES?
The part of the Internet that’s interesting and exciting is the HUMAN element of the Internet, and with the rise of social networks like MySpace and Facebook breaking into the mainstream at unprecedented rates, we’re seeing more active participating in information production than ever before.
It’s not a neat protocol that produced the LOLCATs phenomenon; it’s creative (and probably eccentric) people who add new value to the Internet and continue to make it interesting.
Who cares. God is dead and we still go to church on Sundays.
Whatever. Truly. If it were true that it’s boring, and maybe it is for some people, it’s nothing but a HUGE business opportunity to serve those bored people. Go exploit it, genius.
The data transfer technology is the very least interesting thing about the Internet, and I think it has little to do with the amazing things being done.
There is opportunity everywhere. For everyone. For a guy that’s already a billionaire, I’m sure it’s pretty boring, the thought of being able to make a million with one person and a website. To me, it’s one of the most exciting things that could happen, barring Vida Guerra wandering drunk into my bedroom.
internet has slowly evolved into your next-gen TVs and entertainment center (in the last 5 years ironically). It is slowly making TV sets redundant as sites like youtube are becoming the norm. How is that dead or boring?
it has come to me, that taking the internet for granted is the same as taking mother nature and the forces of nature for granted. it’s a balance - u can’t live without either and if you condemn either, you’ll pay for it. mark’s water will either stop flowing or his cell phone may just stop functioning - everything’s connected. mark cuban, why not you exile urself to vanuatu (a very peaceful place near by australia) - oh, and hit borders for more information. pay for lonely planet books. afterall, the internet is boring - and, uh, pretty sure you can plan ur way to vanuatu well - search for vanuatu! hurry up! hit the libraries!
These days its very hard to find $6 billion buyer for a domain name like broadcast.com. Ya, Mark Cuban internet will be boring for you as you sold a domain name for $6 billion. First you tried attacking Youtube and now you are attacking the Internet. There are many other things you can talk about to be mentioned in the mainstream media. Cheap publicity game!
Only morons purchases Boardcast.com
Of course, he got ass kick by wreslter randy orton.
@6 - Jimmy;
I started reading this post and thinking about my reply until I read your comment and had to reconstruct my thoughts.
My original reply was that “the internet is like people, there is good and bad people, there are good and bad sites….” so on and so forth. And I truly believe that and whole heartedly support it.
But your comments also got me thinking and I also think you are right. At least in general. Internet is not HTTP; or at least it should not be. But the browser is a universal construct and, however limiting, a good application deployment framework. So, enhance the browser so it is not limiting; and yes, let’s design some more powerful protocols; HTTP for as good as I think it is, it has run its course.
Regarding Cuba’s opinion, well … he is entitle to his opinion, and the fact that he has made some $$$ helps his credibility. But at the end, it is just an opinion.
If you like cats……then you gotta love puppies! Awww Puppy Awww…!
The Internet says Mark Cuban is dead.
Yawn!
Why was this guy quoted again?
The Internet is alive and well. Software Development is maturing, and things will only get better!
Boring’s not the right word for his post. Stagnant would fit the content of his post better.
I recall reading a very similar post on TC a while back. I couldn’t find it, but it was talking about how the writer (not sure if it was Mike) was sitting in a restaurant, and overheard a conversation where this guy was pitching a new website concept. “You can connect with your friends, share photos, etc.” That TC post talked about the lack of innovation on the web.
While I couldn’t find that post, I did find this post, linked by Mike.
http://redeye.firstround.com/2006/05/53651.html
A few people (I think including techcrunch?) have recently noted that a lot of these technologies are moving toward “commodity” status. In other words, they are just starting to reach the mainsteam (aka non-geek) culture. It is only once this happens that people will start looking beyond the technology for technologies sake, and treat it more as a medium. If the internet is currently boring, it’s because the geeks compose its loudest voices. Once people can channel themselves through it without even thinking about it, whether that be through art, music, or whatever, then it’ll be a whole lot cooler. Those sites that are already doing this (and for all its flaws, this includes myspace), are pretty damn cool.
Not sure many people understand Cuban. Reacting to the T.V. Cuban makes You look silly. Cuban has been a “Gadfly in the ointment “. He provokes discussion on a number of topics that He might or might not take a financial interest in. If You have read His stuff for awhile His passion is real and if You think otherwise, so be it
He made his money on the Internet, didn’t anything worthwhile for it and now he is complaining. If it boring, ask him to do something useful, he is the biggest whiner in the world.
Aside from the fact that I’ve got a problem taking anyone serious who writes Microsoft with a capital S, the arguments here are so extremely selective that they are hardly worth considering. But let me do so anyway for the sake of pointing out flaws to those who haven’t considered them yet.
‘The internet’ is ‘dead’ and ‘boring’. Well nice job on the shock value here, seems to work if you can get a site like techcrunch to report on it. But what is being said here? Considering the article I’m guessing the internet is being refered to as the technologies that make up the internet. Well protocols and standars aren’t changing much anymore. Well actually they are but at a much slower rate. True, there is far more involved these days in creating standards then there was 10 years ago. But honestly do standards have anything to dow th the experience we’re getting?
The argument is that our experience hasn’t changed. Things like YouTube and Facebook.. excuse me, what? YouTube wasn’t around 5 years ago and neither was any other video site! What about Wikipedia, Joost, Second life. But of course that’s software which is excluded from the argument. But how can anything BUT software make up our web experience? That’s a nice flaw in the argument.
I’m inclined to believe Mark that he feels the internet is boring. But personally I don’t need him deciding for me what something is and what it is not. As for the reference to dead; To me for something to be dead it has to be inanimate, instead of growing exponentially. I can’t really say if Mark would consider things that grow rather then decay dead, but that’s not the way my concept of death works. Maybe saying that the internet’s rate of evolution has slowed would more accurately cover his argument. But that really would destroy the shock value wouldn’t it? Maybe while he’s at it he could provide us with dates of the second coming and the apocalypse.
Maybe even worse is that dear Mark assumes that we all know it but just won’t admit the validity of his unfounded argument that is so full of holes it resembles swiss cheese. I wouldn’t argue with people that insult your intelligence by assuming you know they are right but that your ego won’t admit it. I am disappointed though that TechCrunch would put something silly like this up for shock value.
Dead says the Internet is Marc Cuban.
Thank god the internet is “boring” technology-wise. Perhaps not for nostalgics like Cuban who liked it when the technology could only be mastered by a hand-full who could keep up with the pace. Entrepreneurship on the internet is now far more accessible, theoreticaly enabling more innovation.
Except the theory is not being applied. Internet in boring, not technology-wise, but in its content and its influence on the real world. The only gain society has earned from it these last years, is the ability to get organised more efficiently (think online calendars, to-do lists, gmail, etc.). I often find myself thinking ‘waw, this would have taken hours two years ago’ when doing certain things online. Wikipedia is another clear gain for society. But that’s it. Politics, literature, arts, news, … haven’t gained a thing, on the contrary. That surprises and disappoints me. Billions of connected people with unprecedented tools, but no real positive effect on how society works. Increased exposure to advertisement and unchallenging or stupid content is all we get.
The internet could lead to a new historical era, the way the invention of printing has. Why isn’t that happening?
Post no. 33 Jack seems to be Mark Cuban. You can easily understand by seeing the tone of the post.
Mark Cuban please stop making sensational posts and link baiting. I know that you are a SEO expert.
Mark Cuban Future Statements.
- Why Linux is Dead?
- Why America is Dead?
If you are so interested in the Internet, please donate 1 Billions dollars to Internet2 project.
Mark Cuban funded Box.net during at least it’s Angel round. Box.net wanted to be the data backbone of Web 2.0. They likely wanted to be a big player in multimedia distribution on this media heavy web we weave as of late. Mr. Cuban is a rich guy looking to invest big bucks on the next big thing. He left Box.net’s board at some point likely realizing that the guys in charge really weren’t revolutionizing anything and surely weren’t the next big thing. If I were Angel to them, I’d surely be a bit disgruntled to say the least.
Cuban sez..
“Some of you may not want to admit it, but that’s exactly what the net has become. A utility. It has stopped evolving. Your Internet experience today is not much different than it was 5 years ago.”
..
“Web 2.0 is proof that the Internet has stopped evolving and stabilized as a platform.”
Where he lost himself seems to be in “Web 2.0 lala land”. Web 2.0 does not exist. It never existed outside of the ego rich minds of `entrepreneurs` and vulture capitalists.
“Applications like Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, etc were able to explode in popularity because they worked. No one had to worry about their ISP making a change and things not working. The days of walled gardens like AOL, Prodigy and others were gone.”
Facebook is a walled garden run by a kid who stole an idea, hacked some PHP, insists on wearing Adidas sandals *EVERYWHERE* obviously to prove a point, all the while valuing himself at billions — http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/images/zucker2.jpg — If Cuban thinks FB is at the forefront, then he’s merely looking at a site that’s temporarily captured the eyeballs of the net’s most popular age group.
“The days of the Internet creating explosively exciting ideas are dead. They are dead until bandwidth throughput to the home reaches far higher numbers than the vast majority of broadband users get today.”
Brad Fitzpatrick & David Recordon, both true forward thinkers are working on fantastic ideas that could very well disrupt our entire notion of social interaction or otherwise the true backbone of this so called “Web 2.0″. Oh and bandwidth has *NOTHING* to do with it. http://bradfitz.com/social-graph-problem/
What does Japan have that we don’t? They’ve got the bandwidth.. They stream YouTube to their cell phones. That’s about all they’ve got on us.. I’m so jealous……
Widespread adoption of distributed, trackerless, BitTorrent usage could very well be the missing link he’s looking for in terms of large scale media distribution. No infrastructure upgrades necessary — implement it today. Then again, if Comcast continues to shape their traffic and others follow suit the neutrality of our net could be in jeopardy even prior to some moron from Alaska blocking our `tubes` from sending `internets`. With his kind of money he should sell his team and get into the politics of infrastructure. Support Google in their 700MHz wireless ambitions. Partner up and start his own ISP.
But to say the Internet is dead and boring at this point in it’s evolution just sounds like a cop out because he can no longer make sense of it.
Just my two cents.. but hey I’m not a millionaire so what would I know.
@Jimmy, 6 - You’re a moron. Sorry. Invest in Silverlight. See what kind of infrastructure that pans out to be. M$ loves you.
Yesterday I was saying: “Two years ago, most sites on TechCrunch were useful. One year ago, most sites on TechCrunch were cool. Now, most are pathetic.”
Now this isn’t a problem with TechCrunch at all. It’s just that TechCrunch’s picks represent the industry as a whole and the quality of what the industry is putting out has slid a lot. Hopefully things will start to go full circle again (as they did a few years back) and something will trigger a whole lot of new, innovative but *useful* ideas again.
What a moron. He just wants bandwidth everywhere for his hi-def video crap that is already happening without him.
Yeah — Roger that Wilco .
Things are quite a bit different and more interesting than 5 years ago.
Mark Cuban wins my iZero award for the week.
However - the noise floor is higher now — it does take more time to find cool new stuff.
This is the same guy who predicted the death of MP3 in 1999.
Is he ever going to stop talking?
define:mark cuban
a boring painfully rich slob.
Cuban is a like a neanderthal. Similar intelect, and here he exibits a similar attention span. “The internet is borring.” Sounds like my 13 year old cusin who has beat himself raw to every porn site on the net. “Oh the good old fun days when I could luck out a poorly executed obvious idea… That wasn’t boring.” Now Cuban is left with no inovative ideas or friends that he doesn’t feed, and a chip on his shoulder.
After whittnessing him hanging out in a bar totally by himself akwardly hopping someone would notice who he was, I honestly feel sorry for him. He set uncomftorably for an hour before he fell into plan B: start buying people shots. At least with this article he is getting some unpayed for attention… Even if I dont think its deserved.
Mark Cuban is a has been - a lucky one at that. Broadcast.com is non-existant at Yahoo.
I guess Mark Cuban feels he didn’t get enough attention when he said the Internet was dead (and also for old people) last month at CTAM.
I think the biggest hole in his argument is that stable is equivalent to boring.
cats + slavespeak = success
Mark Cuban is dead and boring.