Two things rather quickly.

In 10 years we will be doing vertical travel, so forget all the taxi domains unless you have VerticalTaxi.com.

1. Propulsion car guided by GPS angles up at 45 degrees against the rotation of the earth and re-enters at 45 degrees after 65 minutes. End result New York to LA and you come down in a 5 foot square numbered section of a parking lot at LAX.

2. The Internet wil expand but the use will become more parochial. As China and the sub-continent dominate the Internet, botique private Internets will sprout up specific to certain countries engendering a jingoistic approach.
Businesses may want to have access around the world, but the majority of people can see no reason to be connected world wide.

Conduct an empiical experiment...and not with people from this forum, as they are all Internet saavy and wired or connected, if you will. Do this with regular people on the street.

Ask them them 3 questions:

1. Is it important that YOUR Intenet is linked to other coutries all over the world?
2. Why is it imporant to be linked to these countries? Now, here is where the answers will slow down. They said " yes " because they heard this is good but they really don't now why.
3. Lastly, what coutries are they in contact with on a regular basis?

Probably a silly take on the matter to most of you? Well, I am a businessman whose experience predates the Internet by a substantial period. Do I use it? Absolutley.

Do I need access to foreign nations? No, I do not.
Do I use it for access here in the U.S. Absolutely,

But f it went away, I would be back to doing business only in NJ. like I did before the Internet.

They point that I am making is that unless you are are an International business, very few of us have a real need to be linked to other coutries.

The Internet has given people a lot of electronic pen pals but little more than that.

Ask yourself, " if the Internet went away tomorrow, how woud my business life, NOT social lfe be effected? "
They answer to 98% of us would be: " Very, marginally. "

And in a week we would be back at our fax machines, going to the post office or calling FedEx for a pick up.

Doc