And he was right. If you read what what you linked, you'd that everything his said is true when you dig down into it.
> Consider today’s online world. The Usenet, a worldwide bulletin board, allows anyone to post messages across the nation. Your word gets out, leapfrogging editors and publishers. Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles, harrasment, and anonymous threats.
This is exactly the same issue that we are still debating today. He is exactly right.
> Won’t the Internet be useful in governing? Internet addicts clamor for government reports. But when Andy Spano ran for county executive in Westchester County, N.Y., he put every press release and position paper onto a bulletin board. In that affluent county, with plenty of computer companies, how many voters logged in? Fewer than 30. Not a good omen.
He's right again. About the only thing that you can do with the government today is renew your car's registration (if you're lucky). The fundamentals of government haven't changed a bit.
The whole context of his argument is that the internet is not going to replace business as usual. You won't replace a school teacher with a CD rom. Online courses are widely regarded as being much worse than a college education. There is really no surprises in anything he said.
I sincerely thought he would just be someone who wasn't "with it"... but no, he actually has a clear understanding of how the promises that the internet didn't materialize in the 90s, and still haven't today.
...And regardless, if you need to quote literally who to find an example of someone saying the internet is bad? I mean, this is just arguing on the internet for you. Read the headline, not the substance, and dig up random factoids to "gotcha" people instead of really thinking critically about the core problems of the world. And nothing gets solved; no minds are changed.
Pretty sure when krageon said "that's not what they said" they were referring to poster of the original comment that was being replied to - not the know it alls from 90s.
It was only 2006 when I worked at a company making ASIC-based network security products and had a coworker whose actual description of the threat profile was "kids who live in their parents basements, need to see the sun more"
“The internet is a fad”
It is just nerdy men in their basements.