Clifford Stoll on this whole Internet thing
Cliff, who now makes these great Klein bottles, was, for a while, an Internet pundit. Luckily, it didn’t work out but a buddy pointed me to this great article from 1995 where Stoll derides the Internet and says it’s a dead end.
While many of his points are valid – essentially in a sea of cacophony you rarely get beauty – but I love this little paragraph:
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?
Trust, me, Cliff, things have changed. Anyway, great read, great guy, and a fun look at the Internet of 15 years ago.