The historical future of the Internet

\<!\[CDATA *The Register*  does it again. The article starts out as being [an announcement that Google will google books](http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34586.html)  and then veers completely off track into a discussion of how 1994’s Internet promises compare with 2003’s Internet reality.

The Internet (or, more accurately, the world wide web) was to enable “unlimited access to vistas of encyclopedic knowledge. Every body would be connected to every thing, and we would never be short of an answer.” Remember that dream? Remember loading up your first copy of Mosaic and seeing the NCSA home page? How about Yahoo!

In any case, the fractured and mostly hidden world wide web of today doesn’t look much like the promise. For example, I know where to go to get relatively accurate film and music information, mostly because these are topics that interest me. Where do I go if I want to get fair and unbiased health information? Certainly not Google, where drug companies have been vying for top spot for years.

What happened to the truth?

What happened to the dream?

What happened to all that lovely hippie shit?

— Pete Townsend.]]>