Every once in a while I think of this. I used to spend a lot of time in the early 90s playing (and writing) MUDs on my boyfriend’s leftover prototype Mac Portable (ie the “mac luggable”). (A bit later, another prototype Mini Duo Dock was like a dream…. so tiny and light!) I also spent a fair amount of time on IRC and gopher (and archie) just poking around, looking at stuff, spelunking, looking for new MUDs and BBSes to try out. My hangout was Dark Side of the Moon at the time.
Anyway one day in 1993 Kevin came home and was showing us (probably some combo of me, max, and my sister) this new awesome thing, Mosaic. MIND BLOWN. I remember just going into a sort of trance like I was on mental overdrive. I yelled “OH FUCK. They’re going to put ADS on our COMPUTERS.” “No… haahahah that couldn’t happen. What do you mean. What?” Look. I’m telling you. ADS… my god…. oh, god. OH GOD!!!!! “No one would let that happen. They’re our computers.” OH MY GOD YOU DON’T SEE IT. I’M TELLING YOU!!!!
It was like the Double Rainbow guy but the polar opposite. It was like being Cassandra or someone in a place about to be severely colonized. I could see it all. I could see the future.
Well, hello there past me. You were correct. It’s as dystopian as you thought it would be! And even weirder!
Sometimes it slams into me again all at once and I feel a wild sense of cognitive dissonance that this is where we ended up.