No far from it. The early web was people putting their interests online, in the hope that someone might be on the same wavelength and discover them. Before that

No far from it. The early web was people putting their interests online, in the hope that someone might be on the same wavelength and discover them. Before that it was just academia and then it blew up with the web and email. I'd say the main thing that revolutionised the public internet was TRUST. The early days was an era where people would be genuinely cautious about what might happen behind the website. It was initially a tough proposition to send your money off to a website in the hope that something might arrive in the post some time later. What eBay in particular did was create the feedback system, where we could gain ratings points for doing what we said we were going to do. I feel like this trust system and the legitimisation of e-commerce has made the importance of this fade into the background. Now, we are in an age where seemingly millions of people get embroiled in schemes of little utility in the blind faith they will make them rich, somehow.