I was talking to a large Silicon Valley video-conferencing firm the other day. ‘Just for interest,’ I asked, ‘what would it cost to provide your service to 65 million people?’
The reason I asked is simple. I don’t understand why it is fine for government to spend £60 billion on a railway or £20 billion on an airport, but not, say, £300 million a year providing the whole country with first-rate video-calling technology.
The argument for the UK seems especially compelling. An English-speaking country situated on the Greenwich meridian is likely to gain disproportionate business advantage from the widespread adoption of video–conferencing. If we were to negotiate a collective price for the whole of the UK to access the service, this would make the technology inordinately cheaper and hence more widespread among large and small businesses. The magical property of network effects means that (as with the telephone or fax machine, or Facebook) the value of such technologies grows with every person who adopts it.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in