Happy 25th anniversary to this Daily Mail article from the year 2000, proclaiming that internet "may be just a passing fad as millions give up on it".
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@stefan
I recall an interview with an AT&T exec who claimed the Internet was a fad
@stefan Does anyone have page, section, and edition for this? (The image gives author, title, date, and column).
@stefan the article was good, the timing was wrong, we're getting there now :P
Even then, vested interests were funding malign influence campaigns because they always fear the new.
Even then, the rich feared the disruption of unfettered access to information.
@stefan If only this had been true...
@stefan December 2000 seems to be a bit late for that. About three years late, since I would put the tipping point at about 1997.
@stefan Wow, that's about a year and a half *after* Homer Simpson said "The Internet? Is that thing still around?" in a joke indicating he was clueless and out-of-touch.
Don't look so frightened
This is just a passing phase
One of my bad days
@stefan "The Internet is just a hype" - supposedly Bill Gates
@stefan Interesting this quote: "e-mail [...] is adding to an overload of information".
So nothing has changed, really, we're just continually adjusting to overload.
@stefan I'm seeing the same article these days about electric cars and bikes. And the opposite articles about AI, "millions falling behind by not using AI"
@stefan Happy Dead Internet Day!!!
@stefan too bad it wasn’t right lol
@stefan I feel like this is an artifact from right as the timelines diverged. One from the good future.
@stefan it’s me! i’m millions!
@stefan Sometimes I wish they'd been right...
I'm also convinced someone at BT genuinely believed this was the case, as they seemed to be very slow to get into the ISP game back in the days people were first getting online. Like they were waiting to be certain it wasn't going to be a flash in the pan.
