Orson Scott Card: How 'Friend' Became a Verb
When the Internet was first opened to the general public in 1992, I was unimpressed. What I saw was exactly as interesting as the brochure rack in the grocery store. Hadn't people read my sci-fi novel "Ender's Game" (1985), where a couple of anonymous kids used something like the Internet to pass for experts and influence public opinion; or "The Worthing Saga" (1978), where millions of people watched superstars play computer games?
Well, probably not. But I was impatient for others to catch on to how much potential there was for public networks to change politics and entertainment.
O. S. Card reflects on the changes that the internet brought into our lives over the past 20 years. I can't resist from noting that he's overly optimistic about the quality of his predictions. This XKCD comic expresses it best: Locke and Demostenes.
