SO AOL Time Warner busted $54 billion on the Internet. It's a world record. So too was AOL joining Time Warner. As they say, the bigger they are the louder they fall. Particularly so with the Net, as the Internet Phantom would say.
Internet Phantom? I first wrote his story around seven years ago. It was then the wild frontier days of the Internet. A small brash tribe still fought to keep the dollar demon out.
They believed the Internet was the last hurrah for free-flowing information rivers. They believed everybody had a right to know, to share and to grow. The Internet Phantom personified that spirit.
Soon the Phantom was swept aside like any other indigenous tribal chief. E-commerce was the invading marauder. Like greedy conquistadors chasing a hidden city of gold, venture capitalists and two-bit entrepreneurs set up shop in Internet space. They didn't believe that Internet blood was allergic to conventional commerce.
So gold myths and mirages multiplied in a surreal frenzy. It threw up likes of Amazon.com, Sabeer Bhatia, Mark Shuttleworth and many making a few hundred million dollars in a single selling deal.
The Internet Phantom only sighed. The deals were sucker baits. AOL Time Warner realized it now.
Most of the original big money deals are desperately now trying not to go broke. And as we know, many shirts were lost, jobs retrenched, lifestyles painfully readjusted after what sillies called the dot.com boom. The Phantom had struck back.
The Internet threw up landmines when treasure hunters dug into it. It ranged from shaky electronic laws, leaky on-line security, Napster vs Music Industry bitter battles to changing equations like quick broadband Internet access that busted portals. Advertising revenues shrunk, transactions dwindled and dreams turned into nightmares.
The forgotten secret was human psychology. Spending is a means to a greater gratification that anonymous on-line transactions can rarely offer. It's the difference between feasting and having nutrients injected in. Maybe one uses a credit card number a few times on-line. But not enough to prevent behemoths from going bust.
In the post-dot.com Armageddon, the original Internet spirit is back. With telephony and multimedia, the Internet is returning to roots as the world's biggest library and communication tool. It's meant to be the wiring on brick and mortar business, not its substitute or rival.
Those who realize this truth are happy. Others will learn the hard way, like AOL Time Warner. In the Internet Phantom's way of business, subscriptions for sites don't work. Humbly ask for a donation instead.