EPISODE · May 13, 2026 · 16 MIN
Chapter 9 - The Web and the Wall
from The Convergence · host Robert Eberhard
The internet was not a communication technology — it was a network effects technology, and Squash treated it as the former while missing the latter entirely. The sport put its booking sheets online, built digital brochures it called club websites, and used the most powerful connective infrastructure in human history to broadcast information to passive audiences rather than build relationships between active participants. The software fragmentation that resulted — more than 250 separate booking, club management, and event management systems serving the racquet sports market by 2024 — was the structural consequence of a market responding to fragmented demand with fragmented supply, each system creating an isolated silo that prevented the network effects the sport desperately needed. Ross Gerring, working independently without institutional support, built the most complete global database of squash venues ever assembled through the Squash Players App — later integrated into the World Squash Federation and European Squash Federation's Find a Club features — demonstrating that the sport's most important digital achievements in this era came from individuals who loved the game, alongside voices like Gerry Gibson's In Squash podcast and Conor O'Malley and Bill Buckingham's Squash Radio, who built the content and community infrastructure the institutions were not building.
What this episode covers
The internet was not a communication technology — it was a network effects technology, and Squash treated it as the former while missing the latter entirely. The sport put its booking sheets online, built digital brochures it called club websites, and used the most powerful connective infrastructure in human history to broadcast information to passive audiences rather than build relationships between active participants. The software fragmentation that resulted — more than 250 separate booking, club management, and event management systems serving the racquet sports market by 2024 — was the structural consequence of a market responding to fragmented demand with fragmented supply, each system creating an isolated silo that prevented the network effects the sport desperately needed. Ross Gerring, working independently without institutional support, built the most complete global database of squash venues ever assembled through the Squash Players App — later integrated into the World Squash Federation and European Squash Federation's Find a Club features — demonstrating that the sport's most important digital achievements in this era came from individuals who loved the game, alongside voices like Gerry Gibson's In Squash podcast and Conor O'Malley and Bill Buckingham's Squash Radio, who built the content and community infrastructure the institutions were not building.
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Chapter 9 - The Web and the Wall
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