“They just don’t get it.” During the dotcom boom of the late-1990s, this catch phrase was a popular way of dismissing anyone who expressed doubts about the world-historical significance of the Net. How could someone be so out-of-touch as not to realise that this technology was transforming everything: business, politics, culture and even personal relationships? The future would belong to those did “get it.” Yet, only a couple of years later, such optimism about the potential of the Net already sounds dated. How can anyone still believe that this technology will change anything after the implosion of the NASDAQ share bubble and the collapse of so many dotcom companies. Surely the wild times of the Net were only a temporary aberration? As Microsoft, AOL-Time-Warner and the other big corporations take over cyberspace, it will soon be back to business as usual. There is no longer any necessity to “get it.” The Net will change nothing.
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Richard Barbrook (2002) studied this question.