WebTV

The recent kerfuffle over Uber and Lyft employees being able to track the locations that individual customers get picked up and dropped off at reminded me of an incident back when I worked at WebTV Networks in 1996. WebTV, for those who don't remember, was a set-top box that allowed users to surf the web and send e-mail using a wireless keyboard and their television. It was truly a revolutionary device, and it was put together by some of the smartest people in Silicon Valley. It launched with devices manufactured by Sony and Philips, with the service run by WebTV. This was the early days of the Internet – the first mainstream browser Netscape was only introduced in late 1994, and Internet Explorer about a year earlier in 1995. These were dial-up days, when most people were not yet on the Internet, and those that were mostly accessed it via their telephone lines (at university were were able to access it via AppleTalk). The WebTV box had a modem inside and would dial-up to the WebTV Networks service, which was an ISP. Dial-up ISP Business Model The business model of dial-up ISPs was interesting in that they did not have the ability…