Social and Economic Technology - 4.3. Promotional Descriptions (economic impacts)
Why is it that the concept of Secotek does not already exist?
The business model used by the computer industry is not suitable for a rural situation, and this has prevented Information Technology from providing the services needed by the countryside. Hence it has never taken a hold. Little imagination seems to have been put into finding a solution to this. The software suppliers rely upon licensing the use of the product to create a return. This has meant most resources are placed into creating and enforcing restrictions as to its use. In principle it is equivalent to paying for roads by tolling. In a motorway situation this may, with problems, be practical. However. in a rural situation this means nothing less than placing toll gates at all junctions, which are so numerous the cost far exceeds that of providing the roads in the first place. Then more resources would have to be wasted on a futile exercise attempting to prevent more than one car slipping through when a gate is opened, and preventing countless other methods of fraud. All the time the toll gates would make progress across the area a horrendous frustration. This analogy shows that it is no wonder that rural requirements are neglected by the software industry. The only practical solution is to create rural software services at minimum cost, and then release it under a public licence, encouraging its widespread distribution and usage. This would be very cost effective for the economy as a whole.
Present Technology still centralizes.
Therefore the technological revolution has not so far brought much prosperity to rural areas. Ever since the industrial revolution, it has commonly been accepted that to make progress, people must congregate into fairly large towns or cities. This has broadly created social problems, and not offered social solutions. People have been brought up believing quality of life has to be sacrificed for a business need of physical communications, and therefore never challenge the concept. This route has now been followed to the extent that a sparsely populated area with poor physical infrastructure now easily becomes an area of dependency and special needs. In an age where information is the key to success and not proximity to material objects, there is no logical reason for this. Provided the correct "presence" is provided, business could be conducted on a day to day basis as effectively remotely as if there were physical proximity. Yet the dominating force behind the technology on offer to date feeds the "need for centralization and physical infrastructure" concept, rather than counteracts it. This is purely because the creators of the technology have little incentive to either change the status quo, or offer a decent service to those not within it. Yet no great technological breakthrough is required in order to offer a service specifically aimed at offering those in a sparsely populated area all the necessary facilities enable them to help themselves to prosperity. Sufficient IT infrastructure is already in place. It is currently a vicious circle that, in the present environment, the required entrepreneurs that could create a suitable system find themselves emigrating from the countryside in order to function, because of the absence the system. The circle could be broken by a program to create such a technology, including a support infrastructure, followed by an information phase inviting those who would benefit from the technology to use it. Secotek is a proposal to do this.
At present Secotek is in proposal form only. To work, it needs to gain widespread acceptance. At present it is not seeking sponsorship from commercial organizations, because to function it needs to be free of the restrictions that would have to be put upon it to return a profit on investment. It needs to be "free" and open.