In some ways, this is the curse of early adoption. It's often the case with emerging technology that the use-cases for it start off as slightly more efficient

In some ways, this is the curse of early adoption. It's often the case with emerging technology that the use-cases for it start off as slightly more efficient ways of doing things. It can be hard to see past those use cases, especially when you work in a different field. Said professor probably saw the internet has more of a fancy distributed library system. Without working with the underlying technology, it can be hard to see how something will flesh out. Early iterations of tech often sucks. It's easy to dismiss technology that barely works as unlikely to overcome the major hurdles it is encountering. Think: self-driving cars.