[rchaud]

The Internet became valuable because it let the average person email or chat instantaneously from home for the price of a dial-up plan, instead of sending expensive faxes or long-distance per-minute phone charges.

AI still hasn't delivered something of that magnitude for the average consumer. Netscape launched in '94; the dotcom boom didn't happen until '98. Several years passed before the mania hit the markets. AI is in the opposite cycle: there is more corporate-driven hype about its benefits than anything concrete that's flowing down to the average consumer.