Directors of global communications system "The Internet" admitted defeat on Friday and called in the receivers. The Internet is expected to be turned off in about a week's time.

At a packed press conference, The Internet Chairman of the Board Larry Landweber explained that The Internet had expanded too fast too quickly and given away far too much for free. "Although everyone involved has tried their hardest to make this work. it was quite simply unsustainable," he said, reading from a prepared statement, "10 years ago we were just delivering email and newsgroups to a few thousand people. Now we're trying to supply billions of web pages to millions of users - and we're not charging anyone a penny for it. As a business model, it is clearly unviable. I am sorry that so many investors and smaller companies wanted to be a part of this doomed enterprise and I deeply regret that so many people have been swept along with the enthusiasm for so long."

Share prices of The Internet's thousands of subsidiary companies have been plumetting for some months and the prospect of financial difficulties for The Internet was expected by many analysts. But everyone assumed that "things would just sort themselves out somehow" figuring that "with all these people using it, someone's got to be making money somewhere," but accounts released for the first time today show that The Internet has not made a single penny since the 1970s and has been steadily devaluing its assets since then, with even once expensive commodities such as domain names now being registered by teenagers for a few pounds at the end of drunken parties.

Financial analyst Dr Simon James told us "It was a crazy idea. Build the world's biggest communications system and then give it away for nothing? No wonder it's gone belly up. I guess people will have to go back to reading books and going to the shops. And obnoxious young turks in cheap off-the-peg suits will have to make their first million in the city like I did instead of bleeding investors dry for their latest dot com idea. Frankly, I'll be glad to see the back of it."

Existing dot com companies will be given 72 hours notice to inform their staff and customers that the party is over and The Internet will be turned off at a special ceremony in Washington DC at which Mariah Carey will sing a specially composed ballad entitled "It's the end of the Web as we know it".

11th October 2004

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