We are the Web

This is an excellent article from Wired magazine about the past, present, and future of the Internet. Probably the best article about the Internet I've ever read. It's a 5-page read, but well worth it.

Some great moments in the article...

The accretion of tiny marvels can numb us to the arrival of the stupendous. Today, at any Net terminal, you can get: an amazing variety of music and video, an evolving encyclopedia, weather forecasts, help wanted ads, satellite images of anyplace on Earth, up-to-the-minute news from around the globe, tax forms, TV guides, road maps with driving directions, real-time stock quotes, telephone numbers, real estate listings with virtual walk-throughs, pictures of just about anything, sports scores, places to buy almost anything, records of political contributions, library catalogs, appliance manuals, live traffic reports, archives to major newspapers - all wrapped up in an interactive index that really works.

This view is spookily godlike. You can switch your gaze of a spot in the world from map to satellite to 3-D just by clicking. Recall the past? It's there. Or listen to the daily complaints and travails of almost anyone who blogs (and doesn't everyone?). I doubt angels have a better view of humanity.

Why aren't we more amazed by this fullness? Kings of old would have gone to war to win such abilities. Only small children would have dreamed such a magic window could be real. I have reviewed the expectations of waking adults and wise experts, and I can affirm that this comprehensive wealth of material, available on demand and free of charge, was not in anyone's scenario. Ten years ago, anyone silly enough to trumpet the above list as a vision of the near future would have been confronted by the evidence: There wasn't enough money in all the investment firms in the entire world to fund such a cornucopia. The success of the Web at this scale was impossible.

And this gem:

What could be a better mark of irreversible acceptance than adoption by the Amish? I was visiting some Amish farmers recently. They fit the archetype perfectly: straw hats, scraggly beards, wives with bonnets, no electricity, no phones or TVs, horse and buggy outside. They have an undeserved reputation for resisting all technology, when actually they are just very late adopters. Still, I was amazed to hear them mention their Web sites.

"Amish Web sites?" I asked.

"For advertising our family business. We weld barbecue grills in our shop."

"Yes, but "

"Oh, we use the Internet terminal at the public library. And Yahoo!"

I knew then the battle was over.

And this sums up what I think about what other people think about the Internet:

We should marvel, but people alive at such times usually don't.

While the Internet is booming exponentially every minute, there are still people who don't get what a precious resource the Internet is. People growing up now kind of take it for granted, but I still remember the first time I ever went on the Internet at a friend's house. And I remember that not long after that, I was on the Internet at my own house. I knew from the very beginning that I would be on the Internet all the time. I haven't gotten tired of it yet, and I don't think I ever will. I still find things on the Internet that amaze me. And good old-fashioned information about day-to-day things is free and in large supply.

Another way of explaining this is from the article:

In 2015 many people, when divorced from the Machine, won't feel like themselves - as if they'd had a lobotomy.

This is basically the way I felt when I first got to Montana and I didn't have high-speed Internet. There were things on the 'Net that I needed to find out and not being able to get to the information fast enough bothered me. Not having the Internet on tap at any given moment was a hindrance.

The article points out a huge idea about the way the Internet is today compared to the way we thought it would be: we the people are creating what the Internet is. It's like a sort of weird time capsule. The vast majority of the 'Net is still user-driven, not commercial. eBay, for example, is almost completely user-driven. Flickr uploads thousands of pictures daily from our own digital cameras, not a photo company. And blogs...well, you know.

All in all, a great article. I don't know that I agree with the ending that the Internet will eventually be this mass-confusion of hyperlinks, where every article posted is nothing but hyperlinks and eventually 'the Machine' will learn enough about us to almost replace our brains and identities. Stranger things have not happened. I think we will eventually lead extremely digital lifestyles, but I still think it's just a digital version of meatspace.