First: it thought that html and javascript were the means by which common people would express themselves. The dot com bubble thought everyone would have a website. As it turns out, normal people prefer expressing themselves with text, images, and video.
So, I just took a look at blogger.com, instagram.com, and youtube.com. They all seem to run on html and javascript. If someone thought normies were going to write javascript by hand that was never, ever going to happen and is not a tick against html/js. In fact, the dotcom bust is what made html and js more robust. I have lots of money creating html/js for people and businesses.
Html is not a good form of self-expression. It’s hard to secure. It’s hard to distribute. It’s hard to reason about. You need to learn how to code.
HTML is no worse than Word, paper, or the printing press. It's not hard to secure at all because html carries no risks, it's a markup language. It's not hard to distribute at all, not even a tiny bit. I don't even know what one would "reason about" with html. Do they also struggle to "reason about" paper? What exactly IS "reasonsing about" html? Learn to code? Are you for real? In 2026? People haven't been forced to write html by hand for almost 30 years.
Second: it missed that 90% of the internet’s traffic would come through video.
No, no one missed this. There's an easy way to prove it, too. Look at all the video sites created 20+ years ago. Hulu, Netflix, Youtube, etc. 20+ years ago. No one missed video being the next big thing except this author.
Not correct:
> Fiber usage would scale with number of websites
> People in the network would scale with number of websites
I agree these are not correct, but that's like saying "the moon is a rabbit that likes to hum Mozart" is wrong. Yes, it's wrong, but no one ever argued that was true.
It would be more true to say:
> Fiber usage would scale with video streaming
> People in the network would scale with social media adoption
It would, and these are the things everyone DID predict.
Comments
So, I just took a look at blogger.com, instagram.com, and youtube.com. They all seem to run on html and javascript. If someone thought normies were going to write javascript by hand that was never, ever going to happen and is not a tick against html/js. In fact, the dotcom bust is what made html and js more robust. I have lots of money creating html/js for people and businesses.
HTML is no worse than Word, paper, or the printing press. It's not hard to secure at all because html carries no risks, it's a markup language. It's not hard to distribute at all, not even a tiny bit. I don't even know what one would "reason about" with html. Do they also struggle to "reason about" paper? What exactly IS "reasonsing about" html? Learn to code? Are you for real? In 2026? People haven't been forced to write html by hand for almost 30 years.
No, no one missed this. There's an easy way to prove it, too. Look at all the video sites created 20+ years ago. Hulu, Netflix, Youtube, etc. 20+ years ago. No one missed video being the next big thing except this author.
I agree these are not correct, but that's like saying "the moon is a rabbit that likes to hum Mozart" is wrong. Yes, it's wrong, but no one ever argued that was true.
It would, and these are the things everyone DID predict.
This whole post is nonsense.