Epeus Takes Up the Telco Story

Kevin Marks thinks he’s disagreeing with my attempt to boil down the telecomm story. In particular, he thinks he’s disagreeing with “The Paradox of the Best Network,” the longer version David Isenberg and I wrote. But he’s not. I like a lot what Kevin says.

The supposed point of disagreement is that Kevin thinks Isenberg and I imply that “you can’t make money with a well-designed network.” Says Kevin: “It was a good soundbite, but wrong on a deeper level” because you can make good, steady money selling a commodity.

No argument! In fact, the heart of what we were saying is summed up in Roxann Googin’s phrase: “The best network [the “stupid” network that does nothing but move bits] is the hardest one to make money running.” Not impossible. Just hard. This is why the telco’s want to be in the added-value network business, not in the we-move-bits business.

So, Kevin and I are in agreement. And we also agree that Larry Lessig’s “The Future of Ideas” is really important; Kevin includes an extended quote from an article by Lessig in The American Prospect.

Sorry, Kevin, wish I could disagree…

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