With the world still living in the dot-com bubble, we dedicated much of this issue to the internet. In “Visions://The Internet in 2002,” Silicon Valley visionaries Pierre Omidyar of eBay and Sun Microsystems’ Eric Schmidt, now executive chairman of Alphabet, prophesied the internet’s transformation into a utility, the rise of built-to-order products and 24-hour connectivity. It was too much for some readers: In a later issue, several wrote in ridiculing such notions. “A comparison of the internet to food or water as a necessity?” wrote one. “That’s humorous but a little overboard, as is the belief that malls will be crushed because everyone will sit in front of their computers in dark rooms, buying goods.”
NOVEMBER 1999
With the world still living in the dot-com bubble, we dedicated much of this issue to the internet. In “Visions://The Internet in 2002,” Silicon Valley visionaries Pierre Omidyar of eBay and Sun Microsystems’ Eric Schmidt, now executive chairman of Alphabet, prophesied the internet’s transformation into a utility, the rise of built-to-order products and 24-hour connectivity. […]