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comment by graphictruth

:)

Well, I'm not sure it was better - but it was smaller, more intimate and the rather technical requirements kept some of the idiots out from underfoot. And I think we did well. It was a new thing and it took everyone by surprise. Mostly with she sheer volume of crap it could spew, as Spafford observed, but it turned out that all that stuff was pent up.

The internet of today is built on stacks of formfeed filled with ASCII porn. :)

And looking back, everything is so much better for that getting out in the open. Our collective unconsciousness was spewed onto our screens and - well, it wasn't nearly as dark as we had all feared.

And it brings the possibility of tyranny of course - but it also brought us notice that we had been living under various more or less gentle tyrannies for many years. It was not entirely pleasant to learn these things - but it's better that we know.