Greetings. The amount of cynicism I see here about the Internet is really quite remarkable. Maybe it helps to have been engaged in this wonder of the world from the early ARPANET days (as I have) to fully appreciate what a fantastic tool the Internet is.

And yes, like any tool, the Internet can be used for good or evil. A hammer can help build a house for a needy family, or it can bash in someone's skull. The hammer doesn't make that decision -- the people using it are in control.

And so it is with the Internet as we stand on the cusp of 2023. Best, -L

@lauren

I agree. The problem was that government got involved, the internet became commercialized, and now the majority of the audience is the entertainment audience, which means ads on everything and lowest common denominator content prioritized by business.

However, there is still a lot of good stuff out there, and I have not touched a phone book in years. That in my eyes is a positive advance.

@amerika @lauren The government got involved in the internet by creating it in the first place and paying for it. It became commercialized when commercial interests boarded in the second half of the 1990s.

@pieist @amerika It's actually a much more complex story, once you bring in the evolution, participation by NSF, etc. There were many unlikely events that led us to where we are now.

@lauren @amerika Of course. But thhis isn't an essayist format. and an essay isn't necessary to respond to something as succinctly backward as "it became commercialized when the government got involved".