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Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana (1995)

newsweek.com

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Re: Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana (1995)

#21

Post by dccoolgai »

Osiris wrote: post #8

One of the reasons that this article may have wrong about the success of the Internet is that he was judging the Internet based on its capabilities at that time, rather than on what the underlying networking capabilities may provide in the future. For example, he complains that it's too hard to find information online. His searches returned bad results and made it hard to find what he was looking for. This problem wa…

True...I feel there is a subtle lesson in there today for all the folks poo-pooing the Amazon drone announcement....

Re: Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana (1995)

#22

Post by digz »

I had forgotten about Cliff Stoll for years... I remember reading his book Silicon Snake Oil in 1995 and giving a presentation to my middle school class about how simplistic the author's arguments were.

His argument and the degree to which he was wrong are among the clearest examples of the power of capitalism in overcoming seemingly impossible barriers.

Re: Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana (1995)

#23

Post by lelandbatey »

leokun wrote: post #19

That background taskbar looks green and blue like windows xp. Is that right? How could this be 1995 if that's windows xp.

I'm pretty sure that picture was not taken for this article, since the photo credit is to Youtube. So it may very well be a much more recent photo.

Re: Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana (1995)

#24

Post by pekk »

spodek wrote: post #13

Less than a decade later my father, a history professor, thought I was a fool for thinking Wikipedia could hold a candle to Britannica for many reasons similar to those in the article. Obviously I didn't know what editing meant, how quality came about in publishing, or what an encyclopedia was for. The value of the GPL was utterly lost on him.

Wikipedia is a great place to publish your views with little real oversight, as long as you get seniority, make a few external sites to link to, and squat the relevant pages. The best part is that your message can be taken up well because even adults think they can rely on it (no adult relies on Britannica for anything, few own it anyway).

Maybe you were wrong and your father was right.

Re: Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana (1995)

#25

Post by TillE »

normloman wrote: post #20

Most of these naysaying predictions didn't come true, but a few did. Computers haven't replaced teachers and likely won't. E-commerce sites haven't replaced brick and mortar stores (though they have swallowed a huge chunk of their business) And I have never heard of anyone attending a virtual town meeting. The author knew what was wrong with the internet in 1995, but couldn't imagine the solutions we'd invent in 2013…

And we're still a long, long way off from the "information superhighway" dream of the 90s. Wikipedia is good, but it barely scratches the surface of any area of knowledge.

There's nothing technically stopping that (except for copyright), but the fact remains that it hasn't really happened yet.

Re: Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana (1995)

#26

Post by InclinedPlane »

His biggest mistake is failing to understand that nothing is stationary, especially technology. One must draw a distinction between the limitations of technology in the moment and their fundamental limitations. Within only 5 years after the author's rant against the internet much had changed. The number of people online grew by a factor of over 20. Computers became much faster, broadband internet access became much more widespread, and the internet in general became much more sophisticated.

By 10 years after his statements the internet was a much different and almost completely unrecognizable place than the internet he was familiar with. The same is probably true for the internet 10 years from now. It makes you wonder how many "never"s, "can't"s, and "won't"s are bandied about today among the cognoscenti about the possibilities of the internet which will be outrun by the pace of innovation and change over the next decade.

Re: Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana (1995)

#27

Post by periferral »

pekk wrote: post #24
spodek wrote: post #13

Less than a decade later my father, a history professor, thought I was a fool for thinking Wikipedia could hold a candle to Britannica for many reasons similar to those in the article. Obviously I didn't know what editing meant, how quality came about in publishing, or what an encyclopedia was for. The value of the GPL was utterly lost on him.

Wikipedia is a great place to publish your views with little real oversight, as long as you get seniority, make a few external sites to link to, and squat the relevant pages. The best part is that your message can be taken up well because even adults think they can rely on it (no adult relies on Britannica for anything, few own it anyway). Maybe you were wrong and your father was right.

and yet it accurately states facts in a majority (if not all) matters I've looked up in recent years.

Re: Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana (1995)

#28

Post by mattgreenrocks »

I'm not sure what lambasting this guy for being wrong adds to discussion.

Really, I want to see a sensible critique of the final paragraph. It is the most interesting one. I see the Internet as fostering community, but never replacing it. Most social sites today are atrocious, quality-wise, and suffer the exact same symptoms he ran into.

Re: Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana (1995)

#29

Post by fiskkastanj »

What do we who are closer to tech than the average person see in the same light now that people in our role saw the web in the early 90's?

My 5c goes to Bitmessage, the web (still. Biggest distributed computing platform ever), Bitcoin, drones and 3D-printers. Preferably them all combined.

It's not like technical revolutions are uncommon anymore.

Re: Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana (1995)

#30

Post by periferral »

normloman wrote: post #20

Most of these naysaying predictions didn't come true, but a few did. Computers haven't replaced teachers and likely won't. E-commerce sites haven't replaced brick and mortar stores (though they have swallowed a huge chunk of their business) And I have never heard of anyone attending a virtual town meeting. The author knew what was wrong with the internet in 1995, but couldn't imagine the solutions we'd invent in 2013…

I think you are overlooking the same thing the author did in 1995. It just hasn't happened yet. There are also somethings where I expect a healthy equilibrium to be reached between online and physical.
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