Mark Cuban had the gall to call the internet, “dead and boring,” in a recent blog post. You can just imagine all the cries of protest as a result. Nonetheless, I think he has a point.

Mark’s central argument is that the internet has become, “A utility.” I think Mark is right in that respect. The internet is reliable and we expect it to be there when we need it. It is definitely a more exciting (and not in a good way) situation when a service is volatile. Volatility is also usually accompanied by cries for better service though. Who is crying for better service on the internet these days? My perception is that the vast majority of web users feel satisfied.

I remember when AOL made the jump to unlimited net access for a flat fee. This move to flat rate access caused log jams as people were vying for a limited number of entry points to the information superhighway. People were crying out then. Those cries buoyed the net all the way to solid dial-up performance followed by so called “high speed” access.

During that time the web has been utilized for many different uses but they are really all variations on the same theme. We’re still doing a lot of the old stuff like using email, instant messenger and e-commerce. The newer stuff involves personal publishing, social networking and rich media. I think that rich media publishing is probably the most significant advancement in the last eighteen months.

If you really take a look at the situation you’ll see that the web is stuck in second gear. We have a ton of new sites and services coming at us but they are all variations on the same theme. Nothing I’ve seen in the last year has been ground breaking or game changing. The last two things I remember feeling like that about were podcasting and YouTube.

Here are some things that are holding back the progress of the internet.

• A mindset ruled by the belief that Google will do everything and do it well. I hear a lot of people taking for granted that Google will rule the web forever. They think that if there’s something they want that Google will either build it or buy it. Google may try to do this but its not possible to sustain that kind of dominance in this environment. As a company gets larger they get more inefficient. They will have more disgruntled employees who are out of the running to be millionaires and just see a job at Google as a stepping stone. And Google will make mistakes. Every company does. So stop stifling innovation by thinking your efforts are futile.
• The belief that any one company or application can “be the internet”. It is an interesting thought but we’ve been there before. There was a time when people believed that AOL was the internet. AOL was the access point. They had email, messaging, search, news and more. AOL had the stock valuation too. That was less than ten years ago folks. Some people are saying that Facebook will dominate the internet soon. Its not going to happen. No company or service can be the internet. The internet is much larger than that and people should think about that when forming ideas on how to change things.
• The limited amount of bandwidth that gets to the end user. Mark Cuban points out this issue in his post. I agree. Mark points out that, “Few people’s actual throughput to their homes have increased more than 5mbs in the past 5 years…” Most people in the U.S. are restricted enough on download and upload speeds that certain innovations are just not possible. Some amazing things could happen with video and personal media storage if only we had the pipe to deliver what we need. Joost works on my cable modem connection but the experience isn’t good enough for me to spend any real time on it.

Mark started a game changing service of his own with Audionet back in the late 1990s. So we might want to think a little bit more about the discussion he’s trying to get started. Some have reacted viscerally as they see this as a challenge to what people have worked hard to build. I see it differently. This is a call to action for those who realize that the internet can be much more than it is today.