blogstory: HUGS ({})
If webrings are already forgotten then the BBS, ftp and Usenet really would have been inappropriate as too ancient?
The early 1990s were exciting times for computer entrepreneurs until the DOTCOM Wall Street bubble burst.
In fact, rarely talked about, the world's economy never fully recovered from the "Y2K" scare...
Then the epidemic of consecutive institutional disasters: in 2001 the 9/11, Afghan 2.0, Iraq 2.0, 2008 "Great recession", Libya, Syria, Egypt, Ukraine, economic sanctions against Russia...
I may have left out some events but the 21st century is 180 degree out of phase with what my generation had hopes for the future 21st century to become.
I am now convinced this current sad state of world affairs is a necessary part of a great transition, outing the institutional governance rot and systemic contagion that needs to be permanently removed...
Perhaps the 22nd century will reveal an advanced community of People world wide. In that vein P2P is a promising trend.
Hug to all (({}))
LOL :D
Just a few thoughts before I'm off to bed:
BBS are kind of "museum"-famous and the Usenet is alive still - even if it a rather retired life (so0me would call it undead). And (S)FTP is my daily bread and butter. I think webrings are kind of an "inside thing" of the early www. I thought they were kind of a cool idea and I used them often. But with the commercialisation of the www the idea kind of "withered". Webrings depended on the goodwill of the participants and the enthusiasm of the organizers... well look what became of the www.
BBS was before my time, but I used to use the Usenet in the 90's and was a great lurker in IRC ;-)
Now, honestly - while the Iron Curtain had me lagging behind in computer technology, regarding the internet I was on the forefront (comparatively, in Europe and especially Germany). I had a 2MBit connection to the university backbone in 1994 (shared by the whole dorm, but only a handful of people had an internet (or network at all) ready machine at that time. By 1995 I knew HTML, which kind of laid the foundation of what I'm earning my bread with today.
And how I miss IRC...
Concerning your visions of the development of society I wish I could share your optimism. While I'm all for P2P and freedom of information and so on... I think the most accurate visions of what will be were written by William Gibson (I'm sure you know what I mean).