That guy who told me the internet would be a fad in 1995

I was working a concrete pour in East Nashville back in 1995 and this older electrician kept saying the internet was just a toy for kids and would never replace the yellow pages or catalogs. He said nobody would buy groceries or books from a computer screen because people like to touch things before they buy them. I wonder what he would say if he saw me ordering a bag of cement mix from my phone while sitting in my truck.

2 comments

2 Comments

tessa_kim36d ago

Wait that guy was an actual electrician who thought the internet was just a toy for kids? I can't believe anyone in the trades would say that, especially an electrician who works with wires and stuff all day. Like he should have understood better than most people how technology spreads and changes everything. My uncle was a lineman for the phone company back then and he said the same stuff but at least he had a reason to be scared for his job. That guy probably retired early and now has to pay his grandkids to order his pills online or something. Must be wild for him to see people using phones to turn on their lights and locks now.

derekp706d ago

@tessa_kim3 you ever stop to think maybe he was right in a weird way? Like the internet did replace yellow pages and catalogs but it also made people touch things less before buying and thats why returns are such a mess now. Your uncle the lineman probably saw the job security thing coming but that electrician might have been more worried about what the internet would do to human connection than the tech itself. That dude probably logs into Facebook to see his grandkids but still pays his bills by check through the mail. Wild how some people dig in on an opinion just because they said it out loud once and cant let it go.