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How the Internet Didn't Fail As Predicted

Posted by samzenpus on from the series-of-popular-tubes dept.

Lord Byron Eee PC writes "Newsweek is carrying a navel-gazing piece on how wrong they were when in 1995 they published a story about how the Internet would fail. The original article states, 'Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.' The article continues to say that online shopping will never happen, that airline tickets won't be purchased over the web, and that newspapers have nothing to fear. It's an interesting look back at a time when the Internet was still a novelty and not yet a necessity."

3 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM by WebmasterNeal · · Score: 0, Troll

    -Bill Gates

    --
    "During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet." -Al Gore
  2. Re:Interesting by jedidiah · · Score: 1, Troll

    You mean the idea of ripping of the basic UI from a CD changer head unit?

    I still prefer a varation on this theme that has buttons rather than a wheel.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  3. Re:The interwebs! by Draek · · Score: 0, Troll

    A better example, I think, would be education. Living without cars is fairly easy overall (except in the US, you people are truly backwards when it comes to designing cities), but there's almost no way to achieve a good standard of living without education in today's age and the same can be said for the Internet.

    --
    No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.