by Andrew Starling

As the stock markets remind us every day, the profit potential for business-to-consumer ecommerce currently looks poor. That's why dotcom shares are worth little more than the paper at the bottom of a parrot's cage. Despite early projections, consumers have not been overwhelming e-retailers with business. Sure, it's a growing sector, but growing much slower than everybody expected. The questions we need to ask ourselves now are why, and is there anything positive we can do to improve the situation?
Jamuary 8, 2001

Technobabble

Let's start with a tale of personal experience that may sound familiar to many Internet professionals. I've helped a dozen of my friends get on the Internet. They're non-IT people who don't want to learn all about computers in order to get on the Web. Usually it takes a few hours to debug their software conflicts and get their modems to work properly. And a little more help is needed when they start to download plug-ins, send emails and generally make full use of the Internet.

Then comes the honeymoon period. They put up with the crashes and unfamiliar technology and bizarre errors because they're keen to get involved. A few months later I ask them how the Internet's going and I get a mumbled response about work and social commitments and being just too busy, and I know the honeymoon is over.

Fact is, they've pretty much stopped using the Web. They're still using email, of course, and wondering how they ever lived without it, but the rest of the Internet has gone way down their priority list. They've had too much to learn, too many bad experiences, not enough rewards, and they've lost interest.

Sound familiar? Chances are, if you're in the IT business you've had the same experience yourself.

Those of us who take to the Web like a duck to orange sauce are usually technically-minded. Almost everybody else finds it a pain.

This is a ridiculous situation. No wonder shoppers aren't turning in droves to the Web. When accessed through a PC, the Internet is too technical, too unreliable, and far too scary.

And yet a year ago we all thought society at large would make full use of this unreliable machinery to shop for clothes and pet food and everything else under the sun. How silly was that?

The mediocre standard of PC access is one of the main reasons why consumers in general haven't taken to the Web. Most Web access is by technically competent people or it's at the workplace, where technically competent people are on hand when something goes wrong. The majority of people still find computers awkward and problematic.

What's the answer to this problem, and should we be promoting other methods of access?

WAP is definitely not the answer. It's far too limited in screen size and data transfer. WebTV and interactive TV are half the answer. As digital TV on 1000 pixel screens becomes more widespread, a made-for-TV version of the Web is likely to catch on, assuming it's sufficiently reliable.

Otherwise, the main thing we can do is press Microsoft and other software vendors to improve their standards. I don't think it's any coincidence that non-IT people I know who use Macs for access tend to persevere longer with the Web and get more out of it. They have fewer reliability problems. It would be so nice if Microsoft gave up trying to add even more functionality and link all its software with its operating system and just gave us something that worked 100% of the time. As Luke Rochester said in his developer interview on this site, "When did you last have to reboot your TV?"

Needles and Haystacks

Those lucky people who do manage to get over the technical hurdles of access, or visit the Web only at work, face another challenge - finding the right Web pages. This has become a lot harder as the Web has grown in size. It's no longer economically feasible for the search engines to attempt to spider the entire Web. Even the best manage to index less than ten percent (or lower, depending how you measure it) of all available pages. The problem is compounded by heavy marketing, which skews results away from what the consumer wants to see in the direction of what the producer/retailer wants them to see.

Take the example of computer accessory purchases, which is a relatively strong area for the Web. It's still far easier to buy a magazine and compare adverts and reviews than it is to do comparison shopping on the Web. Yet in theory the Web contains more information and should be superior. The fact that it isn't is down to the impossibility of conducting effective searches.

Google was a step in the right direction, but there's still a long way to go. Specialist comparison shopping sites are also a step in the right direction, but they generally deal with too few retail sites. What can we do? The answer surely has to be a collaborative search engine project, along the lines of Linux, Netscape 6, and the open-source directory at www.dmoz.org. The mechanics of organizing this wouldn't be easy, but on the positive side there is a commercial incentive for it to happen. Consumers are far more likely to use the Web for shopping if they can easily find what they want to buy and compare suppliers. Currently they can't.

Insecurity

The third problem that consumers face is the unwelcome attention of hackers, virus-makers and fraudsters. The Web is not a safe place, especially for non-technical users. It must become safer if it's serious about becoming a favoured medium for consumers. Right now we've built a shopping mall in the heart of an unruly ghetto.

Most individual retailers are doing a decent job on the security side. They make mistakes and occasionally get hacked, but when this happens they recompense their customers. The credit card companies have also been very positive and done a lot to instill customer confidence. The real weak point of security is the home computer. It's far too vulnerable to viruses and hackers. While virus levels remain high, consumer confidence in the Internet is likely to remain low. Again, improving security is a software issue and in a large part we have to look to Microsoft for a solution.

We should also be pushing our governments to take Internet crime more seriously. Some US cities have specialist departments dealing with computer crime. What a fine idea! The more people who get caught, the less attractive Internet crime becomes.

Big Brother

The final stumbling block for consumers is privacy. For many years credit card companies have been collecting huge amounts of data about our shopping habits. Most of us don't really mind, because they don't abuse it, and they certainly don't sell it.

Some Internet companies manage a similar level of privacy, but many don't. They give the impression they'll keep our records private unless they get into financial difficulties or buy into another company that could use the information.

This puts consumers off, especially in cultures outside the US where corporations in general are viewed with mistrust. There are now more Internet users outside the US than within its borders, so this international perspective is important.

It's unlikely that we'll get a satisfactory solution to the privacy issue without legislation in the US - something along the lines of the European Data Protection Act. But I'm not holding my breath on that one.

The Future

At this stage in its evolution the Internet is a flawed medium for consumers. Happily, it doesn't have to stay that way. Many of the flaws will disappear over time.

There's a moderate chance that a good alternative to PC access will appear soon. Some of the recent attempts have come close, and manufacturers have an incentive to find alternatives because PC sales aren't growing. Digital TV will help, but it may take years for it to become widespread. Most of the generation coming through schools and universities right now is relatively comfortable with PC technology and can deal with its complexity, but it will be more than a decade before they're the dominant consumer group, and that's a long time to wait.

On the search side, I'm reasonably confident that a collaborative search engine project will happen, mainly because searching is going to become so tedious and unproductive that lots of technical people around the world will want to help. There'll be a collective feeling of desperation, followed by collective action.

I also feel confident that Internet policing will improve, especially as governments start make more use of the Internet themselves. They'll become more familiar and have more of an incentive.

But the single biggest factor determining just how fast the Web becomes safer and more user-friendly will be the attitude of Microsoft. History will see it as the company that gave the world mass access to computers through the Windows operating system. It also has the chance to become the company that succeeded in bringing simple, secure Internet access to non-technical people.

The slight worry here is that Microsoft might think this has already happened.