Internet and US Competitiveness

The United States saw the Internet as a tool for improving productivity. It was believed that it could strengthen US competitiveness. El Gore, vice president of the Clinton administration, has emphasized the importance of informatization since Senator Senator Arroyo said it can improve US competitiveness through information. In fact, this was a key priority for the Clinton administration at that time, and many government departments have published a number of documents that expect the Internet's advancement to boost the economic benefits of the United States. In order for the policy to gain power in one country, the support of the people should be supported. Alvin Toffler, who is familiar to us, is a person familiar with the importance of informatization and serving as a preacher to the American people. Alvin Toffler is a journalist and not a person with a lot of academic knowledge and accomplishments, but popular writing is more than anyone else. His books were sold horrendously in the bookstore, and his book became a guide to guide the direction that America should make. Chomsky, the intellectual of the United States, said that "the national interest is a value that precedes all interests and serves as a justification to combine public opinion with various oppositions and conflicts within a society." A typical example was IT. As many Americans chose IT as a breakthrough that would solve many internal problems in the United States, US IT began to gain political power.

Capitalism and Information Communication

The United States, after World War II, became a monarchical monopoly in the 1950s and 1960s with a strong aspiration to defend the country from foreign powers. However, in the process of solving the stagflation that has arisen due to the Middle East War that broke out in 1970, the development of information and communication becomes a solution to this. The development of information and communication goes beyond the level of seeking capitalism in crisis and is upgraded to a global paradigm. In the meantime, the argument that the crisis is not a problem of capitalism, but rather the result of neglecting the market, which is the core of capitalism, has become convincing. The claim that the monopoly capitalism is to be abolished and that the newly developed information communication should be used to tie the whole world into a single market has begun to be persuasive. Especially, it was expanded to the United States where information and communication developed.

A symbol of IT politics, El Gore

Alcor is a politician who symbolizes IT. Now he does not use it as an old term, but he popularized the term 'information highway', which was used as a synonym of '90s' informationization. He started his IT business by establishing current TV as an IPTV company. He is a member of the board of directors of Apple and a Senior Advisor to Google.

US digital neoliberalism

The United States was fortunate to be a victorious country without being attacked by the mainland in World War II. It was able to grow into a unique economic power beyond Europe. However, after the war broke out in the Middle East in 1973, six oil-producing countries in the Persian Gulf started to raise prices and cut production. The oil price shocked the world with an oil shock of over $ 4.80, which was 2.9 dollars per barrel. When the oil shock burst and the price rose explosively, it was forced to implement a 17% high interest rate policy to lower prices.

The problem was that the US manufacturing industry had begun collapsing when it could not afford the 17% interest rate. Few companies were able to make profits with a 17% interest expense. Naturally, 'made in USA' gradually disappears in the world market. Capitalism was almost collapsing because the economic crisis caused by the oil shock was a matter of suffering in most countries of the world as well as the United States. Britain has already applied for bailouts to the IMF.

To overcome this, the United States changed policy. It began to blatantly favor scientific technology that could directly contribute to economic growth. Alvin Toffler, who was once popular and popular, argued for the digital revolution, the telecommunications revolution, and the technological revolution, arguing that the world must move to a global, free market, and information age. The public listened to his words. In other words, the development of information and communication technology is strong in the 1970s, starting from a breakthrough to the US economic crisis.

The policy to overcome the economic crisis through information and communication was an attractive strategy for politicians who had to gain popularity in the 1980s by presenting a vision for economic development. Politicians representing Newt Gingrich have begun publicizing the notion that IT and its supporting policies can make a big difference to the United States. The American people also sympathized. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were the ones who took the opportunity in this social atmosphere. With the crisis of not knowing when the world was going to collapse, most companies had a different challenge from their existing paradigm when they were shrinking their investments and shunting their bodies.

US manufacturing collapse

The United States was fortunate to be a victorious country without being attacked by the mainland in World War II. This allowed the United States to grow into a unique economic powerhouse. As the oil shock broke out and prices rose so much, a 17% high interest rate policy was implemented to lower prices. The problem is that the manufacturing industry has begun to collapse when it can not afford the 17% interest rate. For companies, it was not possible to make profits with a 17% interest expense. Since then, made in USA will gradually disappear from the world market.

Technology and hegemony

The person who developed the technology started to make a beautiful world, but the state only looks at it as a means of maintaining the hegemony. The current international environment, which considers only the benefits of each country, increases uncertainty.

Uncertainty is great, but governments want to make further adjustments.

The United States wants to maintain the Internet leadership in the international community

Why YouTube can’t succeed in Korea

Recently, the video sharing juggernaut YouTube made its service available to the Korean market. Initially, many thought that the Korean-language YouTube was being service from within the Korean internet infrastructure.

However, in reality it has been simply translated into Korean and is being serviced from within the United States. Given that YouTube is the world’s most popular video sharing service, many in the Korean IT industry were concerned about the powerful company’s infringement into the Korean market.

However, in the short run it will be impossible for YouTube to be successful in the Korean market. This impossibility stems from three primary factors: the poor video quality of YouTube, an under-developed internet infrastructure for servicing traffic from abroad, and the inability for individualized private videos to find a niche in a mass consumption market.

The first obstacle in YouTube’s venture into the Korean market is its poor video quality. Given Korea’s reputation for having the world’s fastest broadband and most developed internet infrastructure, it should be no surprise that Korea boasts high standards in its video quality. The quality of video from Korean video sharing services approach high-definition quality. Specifically, the resolution of Korean video sharing services is 1280x960, 1500K, which is nearly HD quality.

In other words, Korean users of video sharing services want better video than what YouTube can offer. Although YouTube could upgrade the standards of its video service, it cannot improve upon existing low quality video. Given that YouTube currently lacks the necessary video quality to entice Korean consumers, it will have a difficult time having success in the Korean market. First impressions last forever and Korean consumers will not continue working with a video sharing service that currently does not meet their standards of quality.

Secondly, despite the impressive development of Korea’s domestic interest infrastructure, it currently is unable to offer the same speed of service for sites based on foreign locations. The Korean-language version of YouTube was developed in the home office of a YouTube employee in the United States.

In addition, the server computer for the Korean-language YouTube is also based in the U.S. Many people argue that it simply cannot be the case that Korea’s internet infrastructure currently cannot properly maintain a foreign-based web service. They claim that Korea’s interest speed is one of, if not the fastest in the world. However, they are thinking strictly in terms of domestic-based web service. In truth, the ability of Korea’s internet infrastructure in handle foreign web services is bad.

For instance, Korea’s top video sharing service currently has about 20 Gigabytes of traffic every moment. However, the National Internet Development Agency, a government organization of Korea, has stated that Korea’s internet infrastructure can only handle 48.6 Gigabytes of foreign-based web traffic. This is only half of what NTT, a Japan-based internet company, can maintain. NTT’s infrastructure alone can able to maintain a 100 Gigabytes of foreign-based web traffic.

In other words, a single Japanese internet company can maintain more foreign web traffic than the entire Korean internet infrastructure. In addition, it costs nearly ten times more to maintain a foreign internet network than it does to simply have a domestic one.

Finally, the overall quality of content on YouTube material is low and uninteresting to the average Korean. YouTube has a large amount of videos on its site, but it is mostly private material posted by individuals. For these particular individuals, their videos have much personal value. However, the average frequenter of YouTube has no interest in these postings. Thus, these videos are mostly wasted space.

The large surplus of individual video content won’t make YouTube popular in Korea. Besides, any popular YouTube video content has already been uploaded to Korea’s most popular video sharing services, such as Pandora.tv and Daum.net. In addition, due to cultural differences, many of the private videos that gain popularity in the United States are not interesting in the minds of most Koreans.

Beginning in June of last year, the video sharing service market in Korea began a slowdown in growth. YouTube had begun to sway users of Pandora.tv and Daum.net to use their service. Essentially, YouTube was seeking to expand their content library by convincing users of Korea video sharing services to post their content to YouTube. The ability of YouTube to break into the Korean market stemmed not from superior technology, but from an advantage in larger marketing budgets and investment capital. However, YouTube never made any significant investment in Korean.

Many Korean IT specialists believe that YouTube only wanted the video content of Korea, rather than a genuine interest in investing in development. The video content of Korea is as good as any of the popular content in the rest of Asia. In all likelihood, the Korean-language YouTube site will simply be a hub for Korean content to be sold to other countries using a global site.