Seth, did you have a homepage on the internet back in the 1990s and the days before Facebook

and Twitter?

Sometime in the mid to late 90s, I used one of those free services that let you make

a page and kind of messed around with it for a while, but didn't get too far.

One of those things like tripod or GeoCities or...

Exactly, yes.

So in the 1990s then, you may actually have had some embarrassing page now lost to the,

you know, the archives of the internet with like flashing text and, you know, the number of people

and aliens who have seen this page, like a page counter, horrible animated icons.

You had all that, right?

The whole sheabang.

Well, I remember I had some free web space that came with my internet account, so I made some pages as well. And I remember that every time a new version of Netscape came out, because that was like the best web browser, it would have new HTML codes, and it could do new things if you learned how to use those codes. Happy times. It all looks so cheesy now, but at the time it was really exhilarating.

So Seth, let me describe a situation to you.

An exciting new medium has emerged around the turn of a new century.

It's open to anyone, if you have the right equipment,

though you do have to learn a strange code.

So initially, it's the more techie types you get involved. You could encounter a wide range of voices and there's a great sense of media being democratized.

And there's a strong feeling of community and a sense that something new and important is being forged,

something that's about to change the world.

And there are arguments about regulation and clashes with

authority as the rest of the world gradually wakes up to what's happening. And as the number of

users grows, companies move in and everyone begins to ask, how can you make money from this?

...