Back in the day, the web actually had to be sold to people and businesses. They were reticent to pony up money to "get online". They didn't understand the benef

Back in the day, the web actually had to be sold to people and businesses. They were reticent to pony up money to "get online". They didn't understand the benefits. It was pretty common to make these kinds of pitches to businesses as part of a broader idea of getting everyone online where we would all enjoy the benefits of a free and open society. Businesses were the last to take it up, and the first to destroy it. But no one saw that coming. I heard this kind of pitch made a dozens times by 1999, to hundreds of businessmen who are now probably dead. No one thought for a moment that getting more metrics on people would mean the death of privacy. Everyone was worried about the government spying on us, and no one had an idea it would be through scrolling and click tracking. At the time this was written, I had a palm pilot and mobile web; but I never would have predicted what a combination of smart phones and social media would do to scramble the average American consumers' brains.