Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana (Cliff Stoll, 1995)

Recommend revisiting Mr. Stoll's book - 'Silicon snake oil' (1995). It shows how much people who are inside the revolution can't see that it's the revolution. I think he got it wrong with everything the internet would become.

Mr. Stoll wrote something along the lines: "Some people who are offline feel that they are cut off from some very important aspect of the present day. However, only in some ways everyday life requires either computers or access to digital networks. They are irrelevant to cooking, driving, receiving guests, talking, eating, walking, dancing and gossiping. There is no need for a computer to bake bread, play football, sew a bedspread, build a fence, recite a poem or say a prayer."

I do love Cliff Still, and it's great to see how spectacularly wrong he was on some of this (selling books on the internet turned out to not be quite as preposterous an idea as he thought!).

He was definitely right about the isolation it caused though!

internet did replace or greatly alter all of those things mentioned (daily newspaper) but was it for the better

can newsweek do a follow-up on this?