We've become so accustomed to the rip-roaring growth that came from widespread Internet adoption and now that it has piped down, we're desperate to find the next big boom. VR, crypto, blockchain, generative AI. And each time, like degenerate gamblers, we're feeling it, this must be it, the next Big 'Un, the bet that redeems all the bets that went wrong, bigger, riskier, bigger, riskier.

But it just won't be, nothing in our lifetime will ever come close to what the Internet boom was. The window for becoming a Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg as easily as they did is closed now, and you just need to live with it. The title of this chapter till the end of our days will remain "After the Internet Boom" and it will chronicle this pathetic desperation.