I worked as a consultant connecting businesses to the Internet, and boss asked me if I thought this WWW thing was here to stay, or a fad. I replied, "meh, it's a fad" because I had been underwhelmed by its implementation, compared to some mind-blowing infrastructure systems, GUIs and wonders like the MBONE (talk about fads).

I believe that the tipping point for WWW is when it was realized as a platform for delivering applications (SaaS). Once that angle became apparent, all resources were expended on making that a reality.