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That 1995 Newsweek piece about the internet failing
I was cleaning out my dad's garage last week and found a Newsweek from February 1995. There's this quote from Clifford Stoll saying the internet will never replace libraries or become a daily habit. He called it a fad. Now my mom orders groceries on her phone while sitting in the same garage. Has anyone else dug up old tech articles that aged this badly?
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beth_hunt11d ago
Honestly, the guy had a point back then. Most people used the internet for maybe an hour a week, and the content was mostly text and ugly forums. If someone told you in 1995 that we'd be getting our news, dates, and groceries through a screen, you'd call them crazy too.
That said, the real miss wasn't the internet itself, it was how fast regular people would change their whole lives around it. Stores, banks, and phone companies had zero reason to push that shift until the tech got way easier and faster.
So while the quote sounds silly now, it was a fair guess from what he could see at the time.
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