6 ms·

Having been part of that era I think the biggest problem was the lack of broadband for home users. We'd be sitting in our offices with a T1 line and only a smal

Having been part of that era I think the biggest problem was the lack of broadband for home users. We'd be sitting in our offices with a T1 line and only a small fraction of folks were even using 56k dial up modems, so the only folks looking at sites were other folks in offices with T1 connections. What's funny is that broadband started to really take off right after the dot.com bust around 2002 which was a gap of a year or two.

diminish 14y ago
basically, dial-up modems made the internet access a on/off cumbersome service. broadband routers and wifi provided an always-on internet at homes. this was the main actor for post-2003 boost, i guess.
- michaelpinto 14y ago
  Imagine only having one landline in your house before the era of cell phones: You have to use that one line to go on the internet, so if anyone calls you they get a busy signal. Yes if you were a geek you'd get that extra phone line like I did, but most normal people didn't do that. Having a 24/7 live net connection changes everything.
Toshio 14y ago
You know you are a senior computer scientist when people refer to events you witnessed first-hand using the words "that era".
npguy 14y ago
That is such a simple but powerful observation. Like, you can have the greatest product on earth but if you cannot be available at the point of sale you have nothing.
rdl 14y ago
Mobile is a pretty big thing, too. PDAs kind of sucked, but even the original Paypal (device to device financial transactions) makes sense now. Mobile devices are better, and more importantly, carriers have less power over the ecosystem (due to the iPhone breaking their power, and Android expanding the opportunity afterward).
patrickk 14y ago
Makes one think about ideas that are ahead of their time now, but will make sense when Gigabit broadband is widespread. You could apply this to other areas in tech too, e.g. car OSes, which are new and not great (like 2002 phones versus 2012 phones), but in 10 years will be a key selling point in cars - over the air firmware updates, every car has it's own IP address, high-speed mobile broadband as standard, detects if you're too drunk and dials a cab, auto-dials emergency services if you crash (some of these are already in development, there are probably lots more features that are hard to imagine just like with phones and tablets).

diminish 14y ago

basically, dial-up modems made the internet access a on/off cumbersome service. broadband routers and wifi provided an always-on internet at homes. this was the main actor for post-2003 boost, i guess.

michaelpinto 14y ago
Imagine only having one landline in your house before the era of cell phones: You have to use that one line to go on the internet, so if anyone calls you they get a busy signal. Yes if you were a geek you'd get that extra phone line like I did, but most normal people didn't do that. Having a 24/7 live net connection changes everything.

Toshio 14y ago

You know you are a senior computer scientist when people refer to events you witnessed first-hand using the words "that era".

npguy 14y ago

That is such a simple but powerful observation. Like, you can have the greatest product on earth but if you cannot be available at the point of sale you have nothing.

rdl 14y ago

Mobile is a pretty big thing, too. PDAs kind of sucked, but even the original Paypal (device to device financial transactions) makes sense now. Mobile devices are better, and more importantly, carriers have less power over the ecosystem (due to the iPhone breaking their power, and Android expanding the opportunity afterward).

patrickk 14y ago

Makes one think about ideas that are ahead of their time now, but will make sense when Gigabit broadband is widespread. You could apply this to other areas in tech too, e.g. car OSes, which are new and not great (like 2002 phones versus 2012 phones), but in 10 years will be a key selling point in cars - over the air firmware updates, every car has it's own IP address, high-speed mobile broadband as standard, detects if you're too drunk and dials a cab, auto-dials emergency services if you crash (some of these are already in development, there are probably lots more features that are hard to imagine just like with phones and tablets).