Musings on using the Internet

Musings on using the Internet

JAKARTA (JP): If you asked most Indonesian people about
whether they have ever lost money, or been victims of fraud, or
caught a computer virus on the Internet, you would feel relieved
because most would say, "No". Unfortunately, those people would
also ask, "What is the Internet?"

Yes, the number of people who know the Internet in Indonesia
is still very small compared to the total population. In fact,
there are many people here who have not even had the chance to
actually touch a computer. But that fact has not stopped people
from launching new businesses on the Internet.

It's a little bit surprising to see the number of Indonesian
Internet domains. Each of them is designed to attract attention
and to conduct business with Internet users -- Martians and
Venusians who have more advanced technology than Indonesians.

However, on earth, or Indonesia, there are still many
traditional people who are not comfortable with the idea of
online business. And you might be one of them; since most of you
are now reading this story in a newspaper. If you were a modern
"techie", you would read it online, without having to go anywhere
and without paying the newspaper price.

If you were a modern person, you would do many things on the
Internet because many services are available there, and most of
them are free. Isn't that great? What do you say about
that? ...Huh? ...What do you mean you still do not care?

Apparently, although the number of Indonesian Internet domains
has grown significantly this past year, most people are not too
eager to execute online transactions. These are some of the
reasons: bad connection, security and too many pages.

If a modern person wanted to read a newspaper, he would dial
his ISP (Internet service provider), wait a little, log onto the
server, wait a little, type the web site address, wait a little,
choose the news that he wanted, wait a little, read it and log
out. That simple.

But in Indonesia, you have to understand that when I said
"wait a little" I mean "wait for an uncertain amount of time that
sometimes seems longer than the time your children needed to get
through college". And of course by the time you finish reading
one free online article, your telephone bill has reached an
amount that is enough to actually buy the newspaper company.

However, our government never stops trying to improve our
telecommunication conditions. For instance, next month, to make
access for the Indonesian e-community more convenient and to
increase the use of the Internet, our government decided to raise
the telephone rate by 21 percent.

Once the telecommunication lines are fixed, everyone can enjoy
many advantages from the Internet. For instance, if someone wants
to buy a book online, he simply fills out the online request
form. Within days, he can have the book delivered to his front
door. And a month later, he simply pays the credit card bill for
that book, along with a refrigerator, and a Honda Accord, and a
stealth nuclear bomber, because apparently someone has hijacked
his credit card number online.

Yes, Internet security is still a horror in Indonesia. That is
an obstacle that makes E-commerce development in Indonesia
difficult, although we rarely hear such fraud actually happens
here.

Many web companies are not happy about this because they know
that they are the ones supposed to suck all the people's money.
That's why they moved into the stock market, where everybody is
buying their stocks like crazy, despite zero profits.

Nowadays, if you want something from the Internet, you just
select a web site that provides what you need. Since there are so
many of them, you have to choose one web page that gives the best
service.

That is why you should first go to a portal. A portal is a web
site that contains links to many other web sites, and has
thousands of banner advertisements that you can't get rid of no
matter how many times you click your mouse, even when you have
turned your computer off. But the problem does not stop there,
because now there are also many portals. Will you ever be able to
determine which one is the best?

And don't be surprised, if, in the not too distant future,
there will be a portal to link many other portals. And then
another portal to link second layer portals, and so on until it
will take you three days to reach the actual web site.

-- E. Effendi