BEGINNING THE INTERNET'S FLYING CAR ERA

I was thinking about the development of the internet in comparison 
with other technologies that have acheived mass adoption. It 
occours to me that it might be reaching what I'd call the flying 
car era. The point is that the period of major functional changes 
might be over, because what people are talking about now for the 
immediate future is stuff like blockchain technology and virtual 
reality, which actually lay unlikely paths to mass-adopted changes 
in real internet functionality.

Comparing with cars, you can look back at the models of the 1910s - 
lacking in many of the common design features seen today and still 
early in the process of taking over from horses and bicycles as a 
means of transport. Jump forward a couple of decades and although 
improved underlying technology continued to advance the
reliability and affordability of motor vehicles regularly, the 
fundamental features common to today's motor cars were becoming 
established. From a user's point of view, design changes were no 
longer greatly significant to the process of driving and 
maintaining the vehicles. Another twenty years and motor vehicles 
had taken over completely from horses in most areas, and common 
affordable models could be assumed to suit all the average 
purchaser's existing expectations. That point in the 1950s was when 
future design predictions were awash with new alternative engine 
designs, and a facination with taking cars to the air, either like 
aircraft or hovering above the ground. But by that point cars 
themselves had settled down into a basic form that did the job for 
most people, and these radical departures in functionality never 
went anywhere.

Instead the technology litterally "under the hood" progressed 
solidly in its own gradual way to try to improve on minor features 
of the same basic designs that had become established. Similar 
things could be said of most technologies that have acheived mass 
adoption, such as radio. A modern observer might look at the early 
examples without much clear recognition of how they were used, yet 
within a few decades of widespread adoption the designs settle down 
to something that has a recognisable functionality.

Computers themselves have advanced fairly gradually in this regard, 
in spite of huge improvements according to technical metrics, 
depending on when one decides that their usage first became 
widespread, and the internet is itself just a part of their overall 
functional development. But the internet is the functional aspect 
that has defined the form of computer development the most over the 
last couple of decades, and over that time it has transformed a 
great deal.

Here with Gopher I'm effectively living in the internet's vintage 
era, where it serves me along with NNTP/Usenet for public 
discussions, POP and SMTP for Email, and occasionally I still find 
a public FTP site for downloading files. In the modern internet 
era, most users have had all those replaced by the web, and the web 
itself isn't the simple text-mode-compatible web of the mid 90s, 
but today's horrible Javascript mess. I don't like it, but that's 
the state that the internet has settled on, and it's how most users 
now expect the internet to work at a basic functional level, like 
how they understand a car to work.

Given the doubtful plans for the future, I think this is how things 
are going to stay. At the technical level change is bound to 
continue, with new protocols and formats forcing me to keep moving 
along the endless web browser upgrade treadmill. But the general 
functionality will stay the same. Javascrpt based websites and web 
apps might be the way the internet is going to be for quite a long 
time, even if the names, and perhaps even the distinction between 
web browsers and the OS, might change.

 - The Free Thinker