[AusNOG] AAB Statement

[Mark Smith]

On Thu, 2 Sep 2010 09:29:57 +1000
Andrew Fort <afort at choqolat.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 8:55 AM, Mark Smith
> <nanog at 85d5b20a518b8f6864949bd940457dc124746ddc.nosense.org> wrote:
> > On Thu, 2 Sep 2010 08:19:30 +1000
> > Andrew Fort <afort at choqolat.org> wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 7:50 PM, Mark Smith
> >> >
> >> > I think it'd be pretty short sighted to assume that the commonly run
> >> > applications of today are going to the same in the future.
> >> >
> >>
> >> You mean, like email and file transfer? :)
> >>
> >
> > When I first started using the Internet in the early 90s, I generally
> > think usenet news was probably the most popular application, with email
> > and FTP being close seconds.
> >
> > The recent resurgence in usenet is only really as a substitute for file
> > transfers. usenet for what it was originally designed for is
> > effectively dead.
> 
> "Replaced" by yahoo/google groups.
> 

The issue I'm highlighting is that before the WWW, the only
applications that generally generated international traffic were usenet
and email, and with usenet's distribution method, it is likely only one
or no more than a few copies of usenet content that traversed
international links. At the time you were also strongly encouraged to
use local mirrors for FTP (mirror.aarnet.edu.au being one I can
remember). So bulk file transfers were limited to Australia, with a
trickle of relatively low bandwidth traffic traversing international
links.

Then the web came along with graphics, and URLs that requested traffic
from overseas literally at the click of a button (I felt as though
I'd violated an important rule of Australian Internet use the first
time I clicked a link and it sent my request overseas, without me
realising that's what it would do - you couldn't see URLs in browsers
in those days by hovering the mouse pointer over them). Within a few
years, the traffic matrix of the Internet in Australia would have
changed dramatically, and quite unexpectedly.

> Note that only the distribution mechanism changed to suit the style
> conscience of the audience (i.e., they wanted to use a browser).  I
> don't call this a different (human) application.
> 
> Obviously usenet has been for a good many years (since the mid 90s?)
> mostly (certainly by way of traffic volume) an inefficient ways of
> trading binaries.
> 
> Humans haven't really changed, so the applications that existed
> before, will still exist now.  I'm not saying there won't be new ones
> of course.
> 
> -a