Yo! Frank:
Wednesday May 28 1997 22:50, Frank Glover wrote to Rick Wilson:
 FG> By this, I mean the Internet has surpassed, but will not make Fidonet
 FG> and BBSs extinct.)
I think you hit on some good points, but missed a couple of salient ones.
Fido will extinct its own self.
BBS's are a lot like flashing mirrors or tin-cans on a string.
It's not that the Internet will drive these two into oblivion.....but more 
like they were a means to an end....for which far superior means have now 
been developed.
Imagine a Web and FTP site woven together.  Now there is the modern BBS!  But 
it works much more fluidly and seamlessly....faster....and can accommodate 
more than one user at a time.  It's not that the BBS is dying so much as a 
better way of doing something has evolved.  A Web and FTP site does ANYTHING 
a BBS could ever do.......except better....much better.... and cheaper!
The word "BBS" is dying.  The concept, function, and purpose are very much 
alive and healthy.  It's just the word that's in trouble.
As for Fido.....that is a different story.  Fido WAS once a part of....an 
on-ramp TO the Internet.  It could have retained and expounded upon that 
status, but it chose to puke and curl up in the fetal position and sever its 
ties to the Internet.  It *may* survive like cults survive among the 
mainstream religions.....but I don't see it happening.
There is too much inner strife in the Fido hierarchy and it is too dependent 
on the dying DOS and BBS ways of doing things.  It is too tied up in its own 
Policy and can't move to change or adapt itself to the times.  Both Fido and 
the BBS could easily find themselves isolated and withering on the vine.
From my perspective, I see exactly that happening.  But it ain't exactly 
because of the Internet.
Bill Cheek ~ bcheek@san.rr.com
Windows 95 Juggernaut Team ~ Microsoft MVP
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