I sat here tonight recalling the magic of those heady days in the early 1990’s when I could log into a Russian computer from my own basement computer at 300 baud. Did nothing there really but dang if I wasn’t connected to a wire that went around the world and connected with a computer in the old Soviet Union. Wow.
I thought of that tonight when we watched a program on our smart TV which was streaming to us in higher quality over the Internet, than our satellite receiver is currently providing us. Again I say, WOW.
Where does the future lie? How will my kids kids use the Internet, or its future versions? I mean if we can get our collective crap together worldwide to do something extraordinary. Which I confess, these days I feel less and less hopeful about.
But it’s open to us to do with as we like. The Internet provides us with amazing opportunities, but it also is the pathway for so much of the garbage that separates and divides us as nations and neighbours.
I guess we will see.
Too bad the Internet can’t tell us the future.
People will use it just like they use everything else - there's little new under the sun. Some will use it to make money, others to build people up, some will use it to attack & pull people down while others will just get lost in the complexity. Some will fill it with rubbish and some will make it their platform to promote their aims or attempt to control. And a small number will see it as a medium to try to make the world a better (les bad?) place. The tech changes, but good old humanity doesn't.
ReplyDelete;-)
300 baud? Wow, that WAS early. I didn't get started at home until '97 and Netscape Navigator through Cable and Wireless on a 33.2K modem, though work was connected in '96. I loved the 'net as the wild frontier, but then the grockles came along & it became dumbed down and (generally) a place where people were worried about being sued. I miss the days of web forums that were self-policing, although they were often not very kind to those who refused to fit.
I already see changes happening that have the look & feel of trying to exclude older generations - take the changes made recently to the blogger control panel, dumbing it down and making control more awkward. I suspect the 'system' will evolve in ways intended to gradually reduce the number of 'mature' users.
Yes exactly. I used to easily know my way around websites and blogs backends, but it seems more complex or just more effort to learn another new way to do things.
ReplyDeleteI’m starting to sound like the old fart now. But perhaps some of the curiosity about these things has worn off. There will be another new thing tomorrow and I’ll try to keep on top of it and probably struggle to remember where those switches were...