by Susan Ives, Alamo PC

There’s an elated Internet and a droopy one. A manic Internet and a depressed Internet. The good news is that there are a zillion people on the Internet. The bad news is that many of them are beginning to loathe it.

Manic Internet
A recent U.S. Department of Commerce study says that half of US households now have a computer, while 41.5 percent have Internet access, up 15 percent from last year. According to a new survey by the Yankee Group, 33 percent of online US households have had access for less than a year. 

Some happy news is that the “digital divide” is narrowing. That same Department of Commerce study shows that African-Americans, Hispanics, rural residents, the poor and women – groups of people once thought to be in jeopardy of being left behind in the technological shift – are catching up to the male, white, urban middle-class population. The Pew Internet Project reports that more than 3.5 million African-American adults have connected to the Internet for the first time in the past year, bringing the black online population in the US to 7.5 million. The Pew study also reports that 50 percent of whites, 36 percent of blacks and 44 percent of Hispanics have Internet access. 

If you think your mailbox is full, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The International Data Corporation has predicted that 35 billion e-mails will be sent every day by 2005, up from a mere 10 billion this year.

Sales are booming, too. According to a report by Deloitte & Touche, 42 percent of Internet users will shop over the Internet this Christmas. They also report that the average Internet shopper purchased 12 items online over the past year, spending an average of $1,206. Business to business revenues are expected to rise from $336 billion this year to $6.3 trillion by 2005, according to a study be the Jupiter group. 

In the past, businesses sold, consumers bought. The Internet has blurred that line, making everyone with a computer and a garage full of old comic books an entrepreneur. Emarketer is predicting that the online auction market will be worth $6.5 billion by the end of the 2000, up from $650 million in 1998.

More people are online, spending more money, sending more mail – so what’s the downside?

Depressed Internet
My friends are getting fed up with e-mail. It’s not my fault – really! I’m stingy when it comes to passing on jokes or sending “me too” replies to 500 recipients. But still, their mailboxes are getting unmanageable. If they go away for a few days it takes them an hour to catch up. So they put it off – and it becomes a two-hour job. Some of it is drivel from friends and colleagues; even more of it is marketing poo poo from firms they never heard of and do not want to hear from again. And the more trivial the message, the more urgent-sounding the subject line. They’re giving up. Some have closed their original accounts and created new e-mail addresses that are doled out to a few select correspondents. They’re perturbed by popup screens, ticked of by sites that trap you and miffed by mail lists that they never subscribed to.

A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers survey suggests that this feeling is widespread. US Internet users are spending less time online, 4.2 hours a week on the Internet, 1 hour less than in 1999. An if you examine the first sets of numbers I gave you, the Internet has increased by 15 percent, but 33 percent are new users. Do the math. Some of the seasoned users are dropping out! The Internet is losing its charm. 

Internet-based businesses are undergoing a shakedown. According to a new report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of dotcom layoffs has increased every month for the past five months, reaching record levels in October, when almost 5,700 workers lost their jobs. 

Not all Internet businesses and services are doing as well as expected. E-Commerce Times reports that 43 percent of shoppers visit etailers’ sites intending to buy, but end up leaving without purchasing an item or contacting customer service. Reasons included slow-loading pages, difficulty in finding products and problems with checkout. 

A report by Insight Express shows that only 7 percent of US consumers have ever purchased goods from an online drugstore. Online Banking is also not as popular as expected. Weak incentives and poor customer service are turning consumers off Internet banking, according to a survey by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. 

Internet users are concerned about intrusion into their personal lives. More than 80 percent of Americans are worried that data held by the Government could be misused, according to a survey by the Information Technology Association of America. And US consumers are more concerned about losing their personal privacy than they are about key public policy issues such as health care, crime and taxes, according to a study commissioned by the National Consumers League. 

The crystal ball
When television was new, families gathered around the electronic hearth watching the test pattern. That wore off pretty darn quick. When the Internet was fresh, users would surf mindlessly, amazed at where their random clicks transported them. That’s worn off, too. Only three percent of US Internet users “surf” these days. Most go to a few sites that they have found to be useful.

The Internet is a good thing, and its consistent growth, measured by both users and sales, is an incontrovertible indicator of that. But as users become more sophisticated, the Internet must, too. People are going to back off unless they get better guarantees of privacy, better customer service at online stores and services and a foolproof way to cut down on the deluge of unwanted mail.

As I review my diagnosis, maybe the Internet isn’t bi-polar after all. Maybe it’s just an adolescent hormone surge that’s making it moody and unpredictable. It will out grow it. In the meantime, we are all living with an unpredictable teenager perched on our desktops, and keeping our fingers crossed that it will hit maturity while where still young enough to enjoy it.

Susan Ives is a past president of Alamo PC.