e entirely different
animals. "The Internet is an open system, everything is published,
everything gets argued about, basically by anybody who can get in.
Mostly, it's exclusive and elitist just because it's so difficult.
Let's make it easier to use."

On the other hand, he allows with a swift change of emphasis, the
so-called elitists do have a point as well. "Before people start coming
in, who are new, who want to make suggestions, and criticize the Net as
'all screwed up'.... They should at least take the time to understand
the culture on its own terms. It has its own history--show some
respect for it. I'm a conservative, to that extent."

The Internet is Kapor's paradigm for the future of telecommunications.
The Internet is decentralized, non-hierarchical, almost anarchic.
There are no bosses, no chain of command, no secret data. If each node
obeys the general interface standards, there's simply no need for any
central network authority.

Wouldn't that spell the doom of AT&T as an institution? I ask.

That prospect doesn't faze Kapor for a moment. "Their big advantage,
that they have now, is that they have all of the wiring. But two
things are happening. Anyone with right-of-way is putting down
fiber--Southern Pacific Railroad, people like that--there's enormous
'dark fiber' laid in." ("Dark Fiber" is fiber-optic cable, whose
enormous capacity so exceeds the demands of current usage that much of
the fiber still has no light-signals on it--it's still 'dark,' awaiting
future use.)

"The other thing that's happening is the local-loop stuff is going to
go wireless. Everyone from Bellcore to the cable TV companies to AT&T
wants to put in these things called 'personal communication systems.'
So you could have local competition--you could have multiplicity of
people, a bunch of neighborhoods, sticking stuff up on poles. And a
bunch of other people laying in dark fiber. So what happens to the
telephone companies? There's enormous pressure on them from both sides.

"The more I look at this, the more I believe that in a post-industrial,
digital world, the idea of regulated monopolies is bad. People will
look back on it and say that in the 19th and 20th centuries the idea of
public utilities was an okay compromise. You needed one set of wires
in the ground. It was too economically inefficient, otherwise. And
that meant one entity running it. But now, with pieces being
wireless--the connections are goi