Find old internet threads were people argued about (then) new technology, and were wrong - General

News articles, Journalist blogs, tabloids etc are welcome too. Anything that makes one laugh. I will start, here is a thread from august 2001 were some guy damn right says that VHS will never die and DVD is shit and overhyped. [url]http://adequacy.org/stories/2001.8.24.112921.289.html[/url]

[url]http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306[/url] [QUOTE]Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works. ... Then there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping–just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? ... What’s missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who’d prefer cybersex to the real thing? While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where–in the holy names of Education and Progress–important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued.[/QUOTE] The classic. Poignant in this day and age.

[QUOTE=Chonch;52325147][url]http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306[/url] The classic. Poignant in this day and age.[/QUOTE] That guy completely underestimated how much we hate people and talking to them lol

[QUOTE=Chonch;52325147][url]http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306[/url] The classic. Poignant in this day and age.[/QUOTE] On one hand, he was completely wrong, but on another he was kind of on point for this day and age. The lack of human contact in any kind of virtual communication causes a whole slew of problems that were probably unprecedented back then. 'Cyberbusiness' has certainly taken off, but we still have stores, teachers, and sex. Its hard to imagine a world in which there were not some people that would prefer the real to the virtual.

[QUOTE=Boilermaker;52325198]On one hand, he was completely wrong, but on another he was kind of on point for this day and age. The lack of human contact in any kind of virtual communication causes a whole slew of problems that were probably unprecedented back then. 'Cyberbusiness' has certainly taken off, but we still have stores, teachers, and sex. Its hard to imagine a world in which there were not some people that would prefer the real to the virtual.[/QUOTE] I think it also has a lot to do with the internet having enough time to mature so we could understand what the real effect would be. For example we're starting to really feel the effect of internet shopping taking over, but like he said, things like live concerts still out-do their internet equivalents.