What most threatened the Pentium, however, may have been the humor. It started on the Net and, via mailing lists such as On-Line News, reached major newspapers. David Letterman started cracking jokes. Politicians and chips had something in common. If still quite alive when Letterman ridiculed it, the Pentium was headed toward the emergency room afterward—given the speed with which the story was traveling around. On the Net itself, and on the front pages, typical Pentium humor went something like this: Q. “How many Pentium designers does it take to screw in a light bulb?” A. “1.99904274017, but that’s close enough for nontechnical people.” Q. “What do you get when you cross a Pentium PC with a research grant?” A. “A mad scientist.” Q. “What’s another name for the “Intel Inside” sticker they put on Pentiums?” A. “The warning label.” Maintaining to the end that this was more of a marketing problem than a technical one, Intel relented. It agreed to replace chips for free without interrogating the public. What’s more, Intel expanded its presence on the Net. It now offered a nice area on the World Wide Web with items ranging from product descriptions to job announcements. Still, this fiasco aside, Intel had a good reputation for quality control, and by not shrinking from the Net community, it was responding correctly. Another major lesson should also have sunk in among marketers of all kinds—beyond the obvious fact that the Internet could spread news of flawed products. Customers throughout the world could use the same channels to find out about geographically based price gouges. If a software firm charged reasonable prices in the United States but boosted price tags for Europeans, then the Net would spread the word. Software companies might not appreciate this immediately, but sooner or later they would. This was especially true of companies sending their products over the Net. The Internet Adapter, the product that had proven to be so good to my wallet, would have cost me $25 even if I’d lived in Antarctica or New Zealand. I wondered how long it would be before the traditional vendors of shrink-wrapped software would understand this lesson and stop squeezing customers outside the United States. Even with the expenses of middle people and translation factored in, the prices of some American software products were too high in Europe. Consumerism on the Net just might make the marketplace more sane. Other Hazards For Business People Not surprisingly, the old sixties people saw the Internet as a victory of smallness over big corporations. Little companies could use the Net in new and imaginative ways and woo prospects thousands of miles away. Some enthusiasts promoted the Net as a powerful weapon for individuals who hated life in sluggish, bloated corporations.