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Go Away! Enough Already! • To read this page OFFLINE: (In your browser, in its formatted style...) Save As or export as "source" format. Then "open file" within your browser software offline. • To PRINT this page from your browser: We recommend an 80% reduction to easily fit standard 8.5 x 11" page width. by Kass Johns (published July 1996, for WWWiz Magazine ) Well, I can't believe it! I would have likely not noticed it but for someone else remarking to me about it. He lives in Northern California. I live in Colorado. But, it seems that no matter where you live, the Internet (and especially the Web) are getting slower. As much as we all like to think that the Internet is or will be "The Information Super Highway," I think we have all just been hit with a little reality... it has just turned into the highway construction project from Hell! No matter where I go on the Web these days it takes me forever to get any site to draw! Even my own site which I have streamlined to be super quick seems to take forever to draw! And, we all know who is to blame... ourselves. We caught the Web bug, so we all told a few dozen of our friends. They caught it, then they told their friends and so on. (And the media told everyone!) Sorta like a pyramid marketing scheme for electrons! We are all bogged down in traffic and getting backed up by the thousands. I guess we should all be grateful we don't have little horns in our browsers! "Beep, beep! Hey move over buddy! I am trying to get some update info from Symantec's site and your horsing around at The Spot is slowing me down! Some of us are trying to get some real work done here! Go buy yourself a CD-ROM! Get offline and leave the web to people who need it! Beeeeeeep Beep! Yep, the highway is backed up for miles folks! And our only hope is to talk some of these folks into going somewhere else. So, I propose that we start a sort of reverse pyramid thing here. Lets start sending folks away to another place so we can have the web back where it was--to ourselves! I suggest we find a place to send them where nobody will care. I am thinking Prodigy! There's already too many on AOL, and CompuServe is filling up too. I just read where Prodigy may be at a "crossroads on their future." Lets send them all those old junk cars loaded down with looky-loos on our highway! Send them the excess Web surfers. I suggest at the next cocktail party, backyard barbecue, bat mitz-vah, wedding reception or baby shower, you attend, you seed the conversations around you with statements like, "Oh yeah, well I heard that everybody who is anybody is moving away from the Internet and over to Prodigy!" and "You know, Prodigy has some of the most outstanding stuff available online anywhere" and "I just read in a couple of the big computer magazines that all the trendy yuppie techno geeks are now switching to Prodigy because of the outstanding graphics and advanced resources available there." and the ever popular, "They say that the use of the Web is so passé now! (It's an 'out, a has-been')" this is sort of an alternate twist on "You still using that old thing?" Any one of these statements should get the conversation going or better yet, plant the seeds of doubt as the listeners say to themselves, "Wow, I don't want to let on that I can barely log on without the help of my 4 year old. They sound like they know what they are talking about... so sure of themselves. I must be behind the times. I will go right home and cancel my Internet account and begin my Prodigy account!" The secret here may also be in reminding the person that you are speaking with that they are the adult and the kids are just kids, so don't believe them when they contradict you and state that Prodigy is dead--the "net" is where it's at. After all what do a bunch of 4 year olds know?! Convince everyone that you know this net/passé thing for a fact. Or you could try the old "it will make you go blind" strategy! Some sort of evil disease or syndrome will befall the person who surfs the web these days. Sort of a web virus thing. Yeah, that's it! A new medical phenomenon will befall web surfers! It's sort of a cross between carpal tunnel and migraines! Your head explodes with pain as you wait for seemingly humongous images to download to your screen. You hands go limp, your neck gets numb. It's Carpaine Syndrome! So the only solution is to leave your web surfing behind and log onto a more "select" service like Prodigy! So, now we all get the idea, right? We need to send away a ton or so of these part-time hobbiest web surfers, correct? Send them to the nether reaches (Prodigy) and then we can get back to some decent speeds again. Right? Remember, we are all in this together! Send away the excess so we can keep the good stuff to ourselves again! Now go, begin your mission, this article will self destruct in two minutes... © Copyright 1996-2001 by Kass Johns, all rights reserved world wide. The opinions and recommendations stated here are solely those of the author and are not the responsibility of anyone else. This is an independent publication not affiliated or otherwise associated with, sponsored by, or sanctioned by any vendor. We state here that we have used trademark names in this publication for editorial purposes only, with no intent to infringe on those trademarks. Permission is granted to copy this document for personal use only for *non-commercial* purposes, in electronic or printed form, provided that this copyright notice is not removed. This work may not be used on another Web site or online service, sold for profit, included within commercial works, or altered or changed in any way without the express written permission of the author.