[PeterWhittaker]

I guess I am showing my age, but no, the Internet was never "a place", for me and my ilk.

The Internet was just another network, albeit one that worked more reliably (most of the time) and with less configuration effort (most of the time) than UUCP. I didn't "go to the Internet", it was just another path to the computer on my desk, the most convenient way to get USENET. If I "went anywhere", it was deliberate, using Gopher or WAIS to find things then "visiting" a place with ftp. Or telnet.

The only "other place" I had then was the VT220 (? It's been a while) in the basement with the Gandalf (? ditto) modem, eventually replaced with a PC and a Hayes (? ditto bis). I had to physically go somewhere to access work, but then again, I had to physically go somewhere to access work even without remote/home access.

My then-me would say that the author confuses the Internet with "the world wide web as accessed from a personal device".

Perhaps if one was just the right age at just the right time, the Internet Was a Place, but for anyone before and anyone after it was just was and just is.

[RiverCrochet]

> Perhaps if one was just the right age at just the right time, the Internet Was a Place, but for anyone before and anyone after it was just was and just is.

This is well put and I agree. I think there was a unique set of factors that made 1998ish-2006ish the prime time for the Internet to be a "place." The prevailing techno-optimism borne of the 90s was one of those factors.