This Internet thing is just a fad

A 1995 article by Clifford Stoll has resurfaced on the Newsweek site: The Internet? Bah.  Hype Alert: Why cyberspace isn’t and will never be, nirvana. 

Of course its fun (and easy) to make fun of pundits with the benefit of hindsight, but this one is particularly juicy with its sweeping – and as it turns out completely off base – prognostications. 

Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

How true. . . . how true . . . <g>

 

Hat tip: Advertising lab