Internet gains vs. Wall Street Innovations
The Hindu, Sept. 9, 2009
Prabhudev Konana is the William H. Seay Centennial Professor and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin.
There are contrasting value systems at play in the universally beneficial development of the world wide web and the skewed financial reward structure that rules the markets.
The Internet has turned 40. So much brain power has gone into creating this fascinating innovation. According to Internetworldstats.com, globally there are nearly 1.7 billion Internet users. The fastest growth rates have come from the Asian countries. China leads with 330 million, followed by the U.S. with 220 million. India has only 80 million users and a population penetration of a meagre 7 per cent. However, going by the trends, there are great opportunities for growth and investment.
Although it is hard to estimate the extent of job creation due to the Internet, it has made thousands of millionaires and billionaires. We must thank a number of researchers and scientists who made it possible. At least one person needs special mention for his contribution to making the Internet available to the masses – Tim Berners-Lee, currently a Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He invented the World Wide Web (WWW) to serve the scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, or CERN.
What is even more important is that Professor Berners-Lee and CERN relinquished all intellectual property rights to WWW software and related technologies for the greater good. Had he chosen to patent and exploit the innovation for personal gain, he could be competing for the wealthiest person on earth.
Also, the adoption of the Internet and WWW would not have had the impact that it has had. The innovations in communication technologies and software would have been impeded. The demand for IT workforce in the U.S. and the rest of the developed world would not have skyrocketed. The massive demand for the IT workforce gave an incredible opportunity for Indian firms to tap the global market.
Read Konana’s full opinion piece in The Hindu.
2 responses so far
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1 Naufil Mulla // Sep 15, 2009 at 11:15 am
Great article, Prof Konana!
2 Navin K // Sep 19, 2009 at 7:58 pm
I think this is a huge issue. I read somewhere that pharmaceuticals are now focusing on the most financially rewarding drugs and there have been no basic antibiotics developed in the recent past. Most of it driven again by the focus on return on capital
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