Blog post 7

     Looking back on the internets evolution, I feel like the journey from its early days to now reflects just how unpredictable and transformative technology can be. When we discussed services like Prodigy, CompuServe, Delphi, and Genie in class, I realized how basic the internet was back in the early 90's. These early platforms were almost like experimental playgrounds for connecting people, offering email, message boards, and a bit of gaming, but all within closed systems that felt more like early prototypes than the open internet we know today. It's wild to think how quickly things escalated after that. By the mid 90s, the internet's growth took off like wildfire, and dot-com mania set in with companies springing up around every corner, all promising to revolutionize the world. The enthusiasm was contagious, but also a bit unhinged--startups were going public on ideas alone, with investors pouring money into anything with dot.com in the name. The crash that hit around 2000 felt inevitable in hindsight. I can see now why it's often called the dot bomb era because that bubble Burst hard, wiping out countless companies overnight and forcing everyone to reckon with the realities of unsustainable hype. But what's interesting to me is how this crash led to a real shift. The companies that survived, like Amazon and Google, emerged stronger, with a focus on providing practical value rather than just ideas. This shift paved the way for the internet's second era which was was Web 2.0 with things like social media, e-commerce, and faster broadband becoming core to how we live. I feel like our current Internet, with instant access to news, streaming, and social media, is a direct result of the lessons learned from that wild rise and fall. What started with the innocence of services like Prodigy turned into a major part of daily life, and I can see how these early risks, even the failures, were all necessary steps to make the internet the powerful tool it is today.