Guest Editorial

I Wonder....
A reply to "Where Are We Going?"
Frank Vest

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Where Are We Going?
Doug Myers

Perhaps this week's editorial is in the same vein as last week's, but with a touch of yellow journalism. I'm about to utter blasphemies which, perhaps, will bring the Fidonet Elders from their chambers tearing their robes from their chest.
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Blasphemy, Blasphemy! Crucify him! :)

Do I sound like an elder?? :-))

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The BBS as we know it is a dying animal - it's not coming back in the old form we grew to know and love. Why not? Simply because we'll attract no users again - they'll log onto their ISP and play on the Internet even if they know about BBSes. Why not? The graphics are better than we ever dreamed about at the height of BBSing, the variety of activity is greater than we individual sysops could ever supply, and some areas such as e-business - which can transform lifestyle - were never even possible with BBSes.
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I wonder... Is Fidonet and BBS dying? Maybe in the sense that there are fewer Nodes and BBS out there and the Nodelist is shrinking. In other ways, I wonder....

CB (Citizens Band Radio) was big when I was in my teens and early 20's. It was the rage. CB shops were everywhere! Time went on and this "rage" died out. Did CB radio die? No. It is still here. Not as big as it used to be, but alive.

AM radio was once the "thing"!... Now it is a small part of the industry due to FM radio. Is it dead? No. Still here, but smaller and more specialized.

Fidonet is smaller than it was... It is shrinking in Nodes... Is it dead? No. Smaller? yes. The traffic is less, but we are still here.

Let's look... We are down to half or a third of our largest size. I understand that it's hard to justify a BBS when no one calls it. Not a bad reason to quit. We don't have the graphics, we don't have the chat areas, we don't have the mass of information at the "click of a mouse". Well, that's life. We can either complain or live with it. I'll live, thank you. :)

Points before I go on... Interesting thing about Points. With the Internet as a tool, a former Sysop that just can't justify keeping a BBS up and running can use the Internet to become a Point. Yes, we lose a BBS, Node and Sysop, but still have a person that is "in" Fidonet. I note that the FTSC is doing something about putting Points in the Nodelist. I wonder how this will affect the size of the Nodelist? Could we see the old 30,000+ listing of the past? I wonder...

What about the Internet? Well... What about it?!? It's there. We can't change that. We can and do use it for Fidonet. We have Telnet, Web BBS, Packet Tunneling and other things we use the Internet for. I'm not a big fan of the Internet and I have concerns that Fidonet could become another Internet if we aren't careful.... But let's look on the other side of this. What if we didn't have the Internet as a tool for Fidonet? We are smaller now... what if there wasn't a way to access Fidonet, send Echomail and Netmail and Files and ??? via the Internet? Could we do it via POTS lines like we did in the past? Probably, but at what cost? Yes, I do mean dollars. As with any "new rage" or "in thing", Fidonet went big and then dropped off. Could we keep going if there had been no Internet to help us with the cost? I wonder...

Compete with the Internet? Could we?? Sure we could. Look at the Internet. When you boil all the stuff down, is it so much different? What does the Internet do that Fidonet doesn't do?

Transfer files? Nope... Both of us do that. The web pages that you look at are nothing but files transferred via modem to a program that displays them. In fact, since BBS graphics are sent "on the fly" instead of being downloaded and then displayed by some fancy program, I see us at an advantage there. Maybe not as fancy, but faster.

Send and receive information? Nope again. We both do that. Fidonet is a little slower in some ways, but in other ways, just as fast. Fidonet just can't reach the audience that the Internet can.

Messages? Nope, we both do that as well. As above, not as fast at times and faster at other times. Not as big an audience either.

Games? Well, gee. See above. :)

Ok... So why can't we compete with the Internet?

MONEY!! Take a look at this. Let's take Fidonet technology, ad money and commercialize it. What do you have? Sell services to customers. We CAN deliver. You need a file from point A to point B? We'll get it there now!! Promote the Fidonet "Business". Get Fidonet Zones, Regions, Hubs, Nodes, Points in all places with software that sets itself up and makes the connection. Build a Point package that works like the "Web Browser". A business pays for the service, gets the software, installs it and starts sending information to where it's needed. The Point software is "mouseable" and "point and click". The software sets up a connection to a Node, Hub, Region, or Zone automatically and there you are. The people above the Point address are the "ISPs" of Fidonet. We charge for the service and deliver the goods. Crash mail direct. For the right money, we can get it there fast! In fact, the "heyday" of Fidonet saw many pay BBS systems that did things very similar to this.

With something like this, I'd bet that for transferring of information, Fidonet technology could beat the pants off the Internet and its "site to site" relay system. The real question is.... Do we want to do this?!?!? Not Me!! That would be like the Ham Radio operators trying to compete with the Commercial Radio stations. Where does the hobby end and the business begin?

Improve Fidonet.. of course! We've done that for years. Look at the original Fidonet BBS software and tell me otherwise. :) All I say is, let's improve the hobby, not compete with the others. Tread softly least we become our own worst enemy.

Pardon my rambling here. I know I've been long winded, but it feels good to get it off my brain. :) I see Fidonet shrinking down to a hobby again, but not dying. We'll still be here.

Last one out, please turn off the lights! :-))

Best regards,

Frank - 1:124/6308(.1) - flv@texoma.net