Tuesday, February 22, 2011

A recent Wired.com article on the end of Verizon’s unlimited data plan bore some striking similarities to what one might expect from a Sierra Club article. On current data usage, Chetan Sharma, owner of a telecom consulting agency, had this to say:

"So far, the ecosystem hasn’t paid attention to delivery efficiency. Content developers rarely care how much data is being transferred…. Now there’s room for technology that can help change that….It was unsustainable….It couldn’t have gone on forever."

To see the “tech biz” co-opting “eco” terminology is an incredible testament to the prominence the environmental debate in mainstream culture, and a fascinating example of the evolution of language. Is this a signal that concern over those other ecosystems has reached a critical mass, or is it becoming white noise, just there to expand the “tech biz” lexicon? Is there room for technology that might make our other development sustainable? Or, are we just that much more concerned about the costs of data plans than the unaccounted for costs of living beyond the earth's means?

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