The optimism turned out to be naive? I mean, regardless of whatever "cyberspace" was originally imagined to be, in actuality it turned out to be bunch of Facebooks. And more often than not it's allowed low-quality garbage to be spread with unprecedented effectiveness.
Or to summarize in 1996 terminology: cyberspace turned out to be land of timecubes.
I'm not convinced that previous systems of more centralized distribution of information (television networks and woodblock printing) were better than the ones that succeeded it.
I'd dispute that, after making one clarification to my original comment: I meant "unprecedented relative effectiveness." At no other time has any rando with a batshit insane idea been able to spread it with near equal access to same the tools people use to spread real knowledge and understanding. To contrast it with the previous system, it's like hiring a bunch of incompetents and then getting rid of code review.
What will be the web once we move to a new 3D / AR media or a metaverse platform? What id the internet become distributed again (I see some seed in blockchain / DAO), or if connectivity become ubiquitous (think smart dust).
We are just at the beginning of this journey, and the GAFAM of today are the IBM of tomorrow.
The race to the bottom, adtech, consumerist takeover only started when the "stupid" society at large became the majority, so for the west this process was really inevitable. China, being a dictatorship on top of a closed-feedback system and unwilling to let capitalism run unrestricted, has a much better chance of controlling the process and using it to shape society according to a central vision. We should be worried.
in the aughs Tim O'Reilly was talking about chasing the alpha geeks. by contrast we seem fixated on the muck & mire of the lowest experiences, these days, and we have few visible free radicals pushing the ascent. I believe the former to be not worthy of fixation, and the latter to be imminently close to rediscovering themselves, & they will be equipped with vastly better means to pioneer onward with.