We have always demanded "faster, smaller, cheaper," and until now power providers have responded quickly. But my guess is that very shortly the need for denser power systems won't be what it is now. For one thing, distributed power generally is becoming more important, and portable applications are expanding in number but not necessarily in speed. So it's clear to me that the need to stuff power (and system complexity) to the limit for consumers or even business travelers may be "neither desirable, advisable, nor even necessary," to paraphrase Ben Hogan on another "timely" subject.

True, most see the Internet as expanding ad infinitum and expect more capability from it. There's no doubt that's going to happen on the industrial side at the hub end; certainly, the power demands on servers and such will increase. But nothing guarantees that access and use by U.S. consumers will drive Internet applications to become more complex or to expand nearly as fast in two years.

The underlying cause may turn out to be social. Indeed, the Internet has already been knocked off of its lofty perch, its dangers defined in several texts whose authors would prefer to place the Net in a mature creature-comfort category akin to TV. The Internet has been knocked around by such issues as true education, free speech, pornography, responsibility in delivering accurate information, e-mail spams, government intervention and the proposal of taxes, all of which seem destined to outweigh the uniqueness of its original purpose as a technical database.

There's no fix in sight. And there are also those who simply don't want to be bothered by man or machine while on vacation.

The unrest trickles down: Most everyone knows one person who has confessed, "I can't stand to go near the Internet anymore. It's a waste of my life." So with no solutions in sight, don't be surprised to see a jaded populace affecting industry output for consumers.