By the end of the year, it was becoming obvious that use of the World Wide Web was where the future lay and not in newsgroups and that the organization was at risk of being left behind and "of becoming a ghetto for the information-poor instead of helping all members of our community participate equally and fully in future information networks." This challenged the organization to provide ever newer hardware and software while maintaining free community access. These challenges lead to a debate as to whether NCF should be an up-to-date Internet service provider for the whole community in competition with the new commercial Internet providers or focus on ensuring that the "novice, computer illiterate, and less-well-off segments" have Internet access.