“Pah,” the Greek said.
Anders nodded. “I knew you were going to say that. But don’t think of this as a computer thing, okay? Think of this as a free speech thing. We’re putting in a system to allow people all over the Market—and someday, maybe, the whole city—to communicate for free, in private, without permission from anyone. They can send messages, they can get information about the world, they can have conversations. It’s like a library and a telephone and a café all at once.”
Larry poured himself a coffee. “I hate when they come in here with computers. They sit forever at their tables, and they don’t talk to nobody, it’s like having a place full of statues or zombies.”
“Well, sure,” Alan said. “If you’re all alone with a computer, you’re just going to fall down the rabbit hole. You’re in your own world and cut off from the rest of the world. But once you put those computers on the network, they become a way to talk to anyone else in the world. For free! You help us with this network—all we want from you is permission to stick up a box over your sign and patch it into your power, you won’t even know it’s there—and those customers won’t be antisocial, they’ll be socializing, over the network.”
“You think that’s what they’ll do if I help them with the network?”
He started to say, Absolutely, but bit it back, because Larry’s bullshit antennae were visibly twitching. “No, but some of them will. You’ll see them in here, talking, typing, typing, talking. That’s how it goes. The point is that we don’t know how people are going to use this network yet, but we know that it’s a social benefit.”
“You want to use my electricity?”
“Well, yeah.”
“So it’s not free.”
“Not entirely,” Alan said. “You got me there.”