[milesrout]

I 100% disagree. The web is far more significant than machine learning. Machine learning hasn't changed anything yet and I doubt it will ever significantly affect society.

Web has made society unrecognisable only 20 years later.

[blub]

Unrecognisable means that if you take someone from 1997 and transport them into the present they wouldn't recognise today's society.

In reality societal changes in the past 20 years are superficial, so they would have no trouble recognising it.

[noir_lord]

I think that is a little unfair, unrecognisable would only really apply after a revolution/war, and even 1955 Germany would be recognisable to 1935 Germans (as one example).

To say that the changes have been merely superficial understates the case.

Online dating, online gaming, the disruption of existing media companies, Facebooks influence over the election, a president of the united states who tweets from the can, khan academy, youtube, the fact you can learn almost anything you can wish to learn by pulling a device out your pocket that is attached to an appreciable part of all human knowledge.

Computation on demand, I can pull out a credit card and have access to computing power that would have been unimaginable in 1997.

Social movements that have leveraged the web to achieve greater reach.

Those are things that mostly existed prior to 1997 but not in the sheer scope and reach that they do now.

The social changes in current teens who live an always connected life (I'm not sure that's a good thing but I'm 36, I'm too old to judge without it sounding like 'back in my day').

I think when it comes to the web things are just getting started, the utility of the network is so great that barring the fall of civilisation I can't see it ever going away and the impact will just keep growing and we'll just keep connecting more and more stuff to it until it becomes a planetary zeitgeist.

[blub]

The changes you mention are almost invisible in day to day life though, so there's nothing to recognise.

Perhaps those innovations which the tech community considers revolutionary didn't really change society in a recognisable way?

[TheSpiceIsLife]

Unrecognisable is a bit dramatic.

I've been around somewhat longer than that, I don't really think much has changed. People still want the same sorts of things and do the same sorts of thing.

[noir_lord]

> I don't really think much has changed.

I think that is the trap of having been there through the changes, you are acclimatised to them, for what it's worth I was born 1980 and also was around during the birth and the web and I do think much has changed.