WWW

Coping with delayed gratification is—was—a definition of maturity. Demanding satisfaction right this instant is a defining behavior of seven-year olds. The powerful appeal of the World Wide Web is not, as its ideologues claim, the “community” it provides but, rather, its instantaneity: you can send a letter now, get your question answered now, pick your airline seat now, buy anything you want right now. The Internet, empowered by FedEx and U.P.S., finally and fully satisfies our inner child—the impulsive child with zero tolerance for delay.

Since human beings through history have thrived through work, most people will use their liberated time to perform more valuable economic activity. Using the web, they will be able to work far more effectively … Under capitalism, where profit comes from serving others, this release of entrepreneurial energy will be more morally edifying than the “leisure” diversions that many imagine to be the end and meaning of life. –George Gilder

So, there you have one vision of utopia. We will work so hard and long that we will banish leisure altogether. In the future ruled by Evernet, the time we save isn’t something we can deposit in a bank and then withdraw when needed for gentle use; it is time taken away from the immoral waste of art, entertainment, friendship, and thought. –David Denby

(the two primary drivers of the Internet economy: network effects and lock-in) A product exhibits network effects if its value increases as the number of users expands. Fax machines are the classic example: If only 10 people use fax machines, they’re next to worthless. But if 100 million people use fax machines, they become quite valuable. When network effects are strong, there is a premium on rapid growth. Being first to market and investing heavily in building market share are critically important. Markets with strong network effects tend to exhibit a winner-take-all structure, with one or two firms dominating the entire industry. Microsoft and eBay are prominent examples. …

The second effect at work in high tech markets is lock-in, which arises when users face large costs for switching suppliers. For example, switching from America Online to another internet provider has a cost: Users have to notify all their correspondents of their address change, learn how to function in a new environment, and give up their chat groups. These switching costs helped AOL capture an installed base of 23 million users. –Hal Varian

Metcalfe’s Law: [Robert] Metcalfe said the usefulness of a network improves by the square of the number of nodes on the network. Translation: The Internet, like telephones, grows more valuable as more join in. –Rich Karlgaard

Trying to assess the true importance and function of the Net now is like asking the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk if they were aware of the potential of American Airlines Advantage Miles. We’re always very bad at predicting how a given technology will be used and for what reasons. Originally, cable television was just meant to improve your picture reception. … But the Net, I guarantee you, really is fire. I think it’s more important than the invention of moveable type. But you have to wait and see. Society evolves like the species. It’s not smooth and linear. You’ll have something like the industrial revolution—it comes like a jolt, and then you kind of dick around for the next fifty years getting used to it. –Bran Ferren

Lurking is a social activity? Absolutely. Lurk is the cognitive apprenticeship term for legitimate peripheral participation. The culture of the Internet allows you to link, lurk, and learn. Once you lurk you can pick up the genre of that community, and you can move from the periphery to the center safely asking a question—sometimes more safely virtually than physically—and then back out again. It has provided a platform for perhaps the most successful form of learning that civilization has ever seen. We may now be in a position to really leverage the community mind.

… that versatile precursor of the Web page, the American refrigerator door.

If I can operate Google, I can find anything. And with wireless, it means I will be able to find anything, anywhere, anytime. Which is why I say that Google, combined with Wi-Fi, is a little bit like God. God is wireless, God is everywhere and God sees and knows everything. Throughout history, people connected to God without wires. Now, for many questions in the world, you can ask Google, and increasingly, you can do it without wires, too. –Alan Cohen

One thing I learned at Apple is that ease of use equals use. The Internet basically sat there unused for 20 years, and then somebody invented an easy interface—Mosaic—and e-mail went from hundreds of thousands a month to billions a month today. –David Levy

“Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies … is an adage of internet culture,” says Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. It says that as any online discussion grows longer, “the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler” increases until it becomes a certainty.

Content begets eyeballs, eyeballs beget business model. –Jeremy Levine

Who would have thought that the distorted screams of two modems introducing themselves would come to symbolize the dawn of the greatest communications medium ever invented? --Sky Dayton