The internet is worth £100bn a year to the UK economy

[Admin]

The internet is worth £100bn a year to the UK economy, a study has concluded:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11635318

 

[Pred]

is that all?

i've heard azooza doesn't get out of bed for less

 

[Systreg]

i've heard azooza doesn't get out of bed for less

Oh come on, be fair Pred, he'll get out of bed, just wont do any work for less :lol:

 

[Edwin]

Shows that we couldn't have chosen a better business to be in. The future is bright!

 

[retired_member27]

The thing that is always at the back of my mind is that one day in the future and I'm sure it will happen there will be a virus, terrorist sabotage or a natural disaster that will slow the internet right down so it's completely unusable or even kill it.

Now if that did happen, most firms could afford to keep their staff on for a few weeks maybe a month but what if the net was offline for say six months or a year, or maybe even longer, could you imagine the financial hardship that would cause to ALL online companies.

I'm pretty sure if the net was offline worldwide for even just a day the stock market would crash like never before.

Just think about it, no more online banking, share dealing, etc, I for one would be immediately unemployed. Anyway that's my doomsday rant over for the day!

 

[GreyWing]

Shows that we couldn't have chosen a better business to be in. The future is bright!

Very true, and these days are still the very early stages. Also with the offline economy picking up, don't think there is another industry I'd like to be in at this point.

 

[Nigel]

The thing that is always at the back of my mind is that one day in the future and I'm sure it will happen there will be a virus, terrorist sabotage or a natural disaster that will slow the internet right down so it's completely unusable or even kill it.

Now if that did happen, most firms could afford to keep their staff on for a few weeks maybe a month but what if the net was offline for say six months or a year, or maybe even longer, could you imagine the financial hardship that would cause to ALL online companies.

I'm pretty sure if the net was offline worldwide for even just a day the stock market would crash like never before.

Just think about it, no more online banking, share dealing, etc, I for one would be immediately unemployed. Anyway that's my doomsday rant over for the day!

Certainly a very possible scenario - I too think it will probably happen one day - the threat of extreme terrorism is always there - but even as a Christian (don't worry folks I'm not try to weave 'religion' into this but it is relevant to what I'm saying) and having a pessimistic view of this world's future, I believe we are expected to put our efforts into the job or business we're in. If it happens then the entire nation will be affected and I don't expect (from a business point of view) that any sector will escape except those businesses specifically catering for disasters. I suppose none of us should put all our eggs in one basket. We shouldn't go into heavy debt to buy domains or fund our online ventures and we should always try to be prepared if natural or catastrophic events occured and food shortages (yes food would then be more valuable than a domain) happened quickly.

But for now it has to be good news for us on acorn that the online economy is strong and that the outlook is good for the forseeable future. It's what we've all worked hard for. Domain sales are strong at the moment and the need for good domains are stronger than ever. A lot of the higher domain sales have been domainers themselves who have done well in affiliate marketing and are ploughing back some of the profits into new domain purchases. I think we might be seeing the wider business community starting to realise they're missing out, that they've been miserly over domain purchases, whilst at the same time they don't blink an eyelid on spending a fortune on one ad, and they are now starting to pay reasonable sums for nice descriptive domains. It's definitely started happening in the legal/claims market with a number of legal firms moving into the market in recent months and buying a large number of domains.

 

[Pred]

well unless they take down all the root servers, it aint happening
think theres 13 or so and dotted all over place
hope theyre guarded adequately

 

[websaway]

I can't see how anyone can see a dark side to the internet industry it's still in it's infancy. Now if you were in property that's a different matter.

 

[jasman]

There is a possible threat from solar storms. Solar storms have caused equipment to malfunction and have taken down electricity grids in the past. The solar activity fluctuates in an 11 year cycle, the next peak (called a solar maximum) being in 2012. The previous peak, in 2001 was particularly mild and had little impact on the technology grids, and prior to that in 1990 the world was hugely less connected with far fewer satellites and only a handful of military and university websites. But now that humans have ditched much of the older technology in favour of more sophisticated technology which is often critically reliant on electronics and the Internet, if a heavy solar maximum did strike it could pose a very serious threat.

 

[Edwin]

Anything that takes out the WHOLE internet will be big enough to send us all back to the stone age, so it's hardly worth worrying about. Like being struck down by a tiny meteorite - there's no precaution you can take, but the odds are millions to one against being hit on the head by one in your lifetime.

 

[retired_member21]

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/6426-e-commerce-stats-round-up-2

Quite an interesting read on the e-commerce side of things

 

[retired_member16]

The thing that is always at the back of my mind is that one day in the future and I'm sure it will happen there will be a virus, terrorist sabotage or a natural disaster that will slow the internet right down so it's completely unusable or even kill it.

Now if that did happen, most firms could afford to keep their staff on for a few weeks maybe a month but what if the net was offline for say six months or a year, or maybe even longer, could you imagine the financial hardship that would cause to ALL online companies.

I'm pretty sure if the net was offline worldwide for even just a day the stock market would crash like never before.

Just think about it, no more online banking, share dealing, etc, I for one would be immediately unemployed. Anyway that's my doomsday rant over for the day!

Cant ever see this happening.

Even if a terrorist (physical) strike were to hit Telehouse or Telecity in London, then there is adequate network infrastructure in place to reroute most of the traffic. Sure it will be slower, but your data will still get to its intended location.

 

[jasman]

There is also a political threat. The recent legislation brought in, in parallel by Western governments grants them the right to switch off individual websites, to take over registries, or even (if Obama wishes) to take down the whole Internet. Sure it may seem unlikely now, but the fact that they have gone to the trouble of getting this legislation through indicates it is an option open to them however unlikely, and hence constitutes a potential threat.

 

[Pred]

Cant ever see this happening.

Even if a terrorist (physical) strike were to hit Telehouse or Telecity in London, then there is adequate network infrastructure in place to reroute most of the traffic. Sure it will be slower, but your data will still get to its intended location.

they won't be attacking like that
and they'll have bigger sights than them

it'll be either a physical attack on rootservers or a monster ddos attack
has happened before but when the internet wasn't as important
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_Backbone_DDoS_Attacks

unfortunately, the recent attacks on ipo and people like that shows individual site owners, governments etc aren't one step ahead of the badboys
most prob will never will be
taking out the rootservers is another thing, but if the right people wanted to, well, they certainly could cause temporary disruption. globally

 

[DomainManagement]

Can we have some happy thoughts please

Like can have .1 percent of that 100 billion please

i really hate all the negative shite at the moment

was thinking it would to have a happy news channel

or Nominet is doing a buy one get one free no that would be nice

or Nominet has decided its not going to let politicians steal its money

opps forgot that`s what they do

Google is going to give acorn members free get on page 1 on voucher

anyway sold a couple more .org.uk`s last night he he

only a couple more thousand to go if i dont get hit by a meteor

from the museum in Prague

 

[Blossom]

Anything that takes out the WHOLE internet will be big enough to send us all back to the stone age, so it's hardly worth worrying about. Like being struck down by a tiny meteorite - there's no precaution you can take, but the odds are millions to one against being hit on the head by one in your lifetime.

Not really, all it takes is for something to happen so we can't have electricity, and that wasn't invented THAT long ago.

 

[Edwin]

Not really, all it takes is for something to happen so we can't have electricity, and that wasn't invented THAT long ago.

So you're suggesting something will happen that will take out every power station, every generator, every solar panel, every wind turbine, every hydroelectric dam, and every other source of electricity everywhere in the world IN A SINGLE STROKE?

Impossible, unless you're talking about the destruction of the whole Earth.

The same applies to the Internet. It runs on millions of different networks, using different technologies, hardward and software platforms, wired and wireless. Local "things" could temporarily disrupt small pieces of the Internet, conceivably, but there's simply nothing that can "take down" the whole thing!

 

[BREWSTERS]

they won't be attacking like that
and they'll have bigger sights than them

it'll be either a physical attack on rootservers or a monster ddos attack
has happened before but when the internet wasn't as important
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_Backbone_DDoS_Attacks

unfortunately, the recent attacks on ipo and people like that shows individual site owners, governments etc aren't one step ahead of the badboys
most prob will never will be
taking out the rootservers is another thing, but if the right people wanted to, well, they certainly could cause temporary disruption. globally

Genuine terrorists (not the manufactured-to-order type we're being told to fear these days) showed how to easily cause massive disruption. Remember the M6 bombings? Friday mornings, 8 o'clockish - set off a small bomb next to the motorway. After setting off two or three of them they didn't even need to bother, just say they were going to and the road got closed. Simple and effective.

 

[websaway]

You will get Black Swan events, but you can't live in fear of the unforeseen.