BigGoofyGuy
I remember using Prodigy and how I was startled every time it said 'Youve Got Mail'. :)
I went from just browsing sites to keeping up with relatives and friends that I have not seen for quite awhile. I now can find things that are no longer carried at stores.
The tricky part is keeping it from taking over my life. I try for a balance of online and offline.
BT
It's boosted creativity, putting every encyclopedia, every science article, every art, architecture, entertainment program at my finger tips. If you use it right, nearly everything free, though you can choose to cast economic votes. Anything you imagine can be queried and expanded upon by gathering examples. You could live your life in a cave and with it know the world as well as most. Amazing.
EddieG
I wouldn't exactly call it a necessity. In some ways, we'd be better off without it. It never fulfilled its initial promise, and is now dominated by corporations and spies.
We need two things. We need 1.) congress to reclassify the internet as a utility, and, 2.) security. Europe may come up with some improved security. I'm waiting to see.
Ed Weibe
I recall the 110/300 baud BBS job boards and talk boards. The local computer stores had BBS's and they'd call around each other at night and update their shared databases of updated messages. Prodigy was keen to have its ads once it got out there and got people online but the ads were a pain taking up part of the screen. The USENET was popular in a capacity of BBS subscriptions in segmented categories.
Commercialized internet now I agree is full of marketing ploys and such which in the 1980's helped the economy and a false appearance the economy was booming under certain Presidency's who take the credit, but really, the suckage of the then economy is once again catching back up as the novelty of the internet wears off. I do wonder what the economy would be like if we went back to mail catalogs, and order forms, and local malls would then be prime again. The online buying of goods with fed-ex and UPS being the delivery method is getting stale.
habakak
Once I can order a house on-line and have it delivered I think the Web can do anything....OK, no house I have to put together myself. I don't shop at IKEA!
Still a long way to go. Eventually software/computers will mimic reality. The web is just one-dimensional now. People need to smell, taste and feel things. The web is like a 1920's tv set.
VidVicar
I also remember back when the only contact I had was with a local BBS. It cost money to post a message outside. The BBS was run by a single person whose computer was tied up almost 24/7 for people to call in. But now, I find the internet is a useful tool. For example, if I am going somewhere I've never been I get the address and go to map quest for directions. Then I bring up Google Earth to see what the area looks like. If there is a street view I can see what the building looks like. Also, if the weather is bad, if it is snowing a lot, I can bring up the highway cams to see where the traffic is backed up. I used the highway cams when my son was driving out to California taking the Northern route. He ran into a big snowstorm. I checked the weather maps and then the highway cams along his route and kept him updated on the situation ahead of him, calling him on his cell phone. Back a decade or two, when we were all younger, my extended family from all across the U.S. would gather once a month in a chat room. Cousins, uncles, people we hadn't seen in many years gathered to chat and keep up on the family news. Recently my sister set up a Skype account on her laptop. She got my nephews to sign up, too. Now, when she visits my other sister in the nursing home, that sister can have a video chat with her sons who are about a thousand miles away (and seldom write letters.) Of course, I can also use email, shop on line, pay bills, manage my bank account, balance my register, file taxes, download income statements, sign contracts. I also can check up on those prank callers and see who they are and where they live, or check on a caller who is trying to sell me something. All that in addition to listen to music and watch movies and TV shows, and read books and learn more about just about anything. When I haven't heard from my kids in a while I can have a look at their Facebook page. Maybe having the internet is not a real necessity, but it certainly has become a huge item in my life.
Expanded Viewpoint
Even though I graduated from High School and did a couple of years at a community college, the Internet has given me an education more than ten times as vast! If I need some help to build or repair some device like a car or a computer or a rocket engine, the data is right there, literally at my fingertips! I can find data about health, wealth and more subjects than I could ever write down. The Internet is the keys to the kingdom of knowledge. It is the most liberating thing ever invented, in my humble opinion. I have written several papers based upon knowledge that I have gleaned from other writers and researchers who post to the Internet. My life is so much richer in so many ways because of it, heck, I even met my WIFE because of the Internet! If it had not been for this means of communication, I don't think that we could have ever come to know each other! I could go on and on, but I have other things to do as well, so will close with my heartfelt thanks to Tim and everyone else who has helped to create this wonderful medium for communication for all of us!
Randy
Don Duncan
The internet is the most important world wide disruptive technology since the printing press. Like the press, it will bring us a renaissance. It will do so because we now have access to world events as they happen, uncensored and unedited by the MSM. Govt. will be exposed for the monster it is.
Gadgeteer
The early Web was very different. I remember reading about it in '93 and thinking it wasn't very useful. The huge difference between then and now was the advent of search engines. Back then, you had to know the address of a site you wanted to visit. You couldn't Google it. That severely limited the Web's utility.
b@man
The beginning of the Internet as we know it happened in 1982 actually. Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the Computer Science Network (CSNET). In 1982, the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) was introduced as the standard networking protocol on the ARPANET.