Someone Got the Internet Very Wrong
Posted on March 23rd, 2008 by admin
I hope everyone is enjoying the weekend.
This article from 1995 made me chuckle, in a way that bad predictions often do, and also with nostalgia. Add it to the man at Decca who thought that “guitar groups are on the way out” when auditioning The Beatles (and picked The Tremeloes instead) or Lord Kelvin’s “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible” (which was proven false 8 years later).
Then there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping–just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month?
RSS
Good find! There’s a lot of this around if you look hard enough. The thing is, I was pretty well the opposite in a lot of ways - not because I had any greater insight, but because I really wanted the hype to be true.
I see it in my (9 yo) son now. I can’t ask him to do anything without him reinterpretting my request to encompass him doing it with a computer. He’s not interested in using a pen and paper - I’m the same.
I expect this bloke is the opposite - someone who really prospered in a world structured around ink and paper and more formal contacts.