By Steven Horn April 16, 1997 Does Microsoft's recent grabasstic acquisition of WebTV portend the end of the Net as we know it? The Utopian appeal of the Net is constantly reinforced by the fact that anyone with a modem and half a brain can meet a huge corporation on the same ground. Especially if your site is snappy, no one can really tell the size of the organization behind your Web presence. Who but your closest friends knows that you sell your CDs and donate plasma to keep your little .COM on the air? Paranoia that one day this communications free-for-all will come crashing down fuels those of us who create and maintain Web pages. We work with the feeling that we might be dogs going for a piece of steak foolishly left on the table. We fear that the party may soon be over, that the master may indeed waltz back into the room and catch us mid-chomp. Much of Silicon Valley is abuzz about Microsoft's $425 million buyout of Palo Alto-based WebTV. Despite such entities as MSNBC, MSN, and Slate, Microsoft has kept a low Net profile relative to its vast potential resources. Industry insiders see this buyout as an indication that Microsoft is attempting to insure its position as a leader in both the PC market and the forthcoming Digital TV feeding frenzy. With the computer and broadcast industries in a gnarled mess over Digital TV standards, Microsoft has just bought itself a stake in both camps. There are an estimated 35 million Americans with the ability to access the Net through PCs. We enter the Net via a wide range of appliances and devices, softwares, and service providers. With its latest acquisition, the software giant can now broaden its reach to embrace a broad new market: the couch potatoes. As it stands now, the company is limited to selling its wares to people who own computers. WebTV presents an opportunity to introduce and sell Windows and Internet Explorer to a television audience that might not have a PC, but that will cough up the bucks for a WebTV box. The carrot is nothing less than the potential of Net access for just about 80 percent of all Americans. Sit back and watch the tremendous marketing machine at Microsoft kick into action. What Net access software will be packed with WebTV in the future? In all likelihood, it'll now be MSN. Or maybe something different. But it will almost certainly be proprietary. America Online, CompuServe, and MSN are all driven not by the utopian ideals of the Net but by the ability to sell advertising, charge consumers, and enter into partnerships. What will the breast cancer page do when it cannot cough up the dough to be on MSN's Health channel? Is the average WebTV user going to care enough about diversity of information and opinion to become savvy enough, and well-enough equipped, to search and browse the Net? Or, will they prefer pre-packaged channels and sites? Is there even a question? I am not a futurist. Leave that sort of thing to the Tofflers. But, let me make the prediction that once MS-WebTV boxes and software start landing on televisions across the country, we will see quite a few more iFusions go out of business, more and more small sites fold up, and several large sites get even larger. Very few consumers do more than eat what's in front of them. We like to be fed, instead of having to dig around in the pantry. Now, large corporations, in pursuit of the elusive dollar, intend to feed us by taking control of the modes of access. If you control the mode of access, you control the mores and fundamental ideals of the community. And what is the Net, today, if not one large open community? Steven Horn is the founder of Flat Earth Media, a San Francisco-based Web production company, creators of entelechy and the forthcoming SoapQueen and NetCulture.com. He knows the way to San Jose.