I was thinking today about how lucky I\u2019ve been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not because I was there for some grand historical event, but because I happened to be around when the internet was becoming part of ordinary life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember waiting for a Gmail account. Twenty-one days, as it happens. Twenty-one days! Today that sounds ridiculous. You decide you want an email account, and five minutes later you\u2019re checking your inbox. Back then, getting a Gmail address felt like being admitted to a secret club.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Part of my eagerness to get a Gmail account had nothing to do with storage space or Google\u2019s reputation. I wanted the address \u201cwebby\u201d. Unfortunately, Google had decided that usernames had to be at least six characters long. Webby was only five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember the disappointment. After waiting twenty-one days for an account, I discovered that the name I\u2019d wanted all along wasn\u2019t even allowed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking back, it\u2019s funny. More than twenty years later, I finally got my Webby after all\u2014just not as a Gmail address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember sitting with friends on FriendFeed, counting down to the release of Google Chrome. One of them, a Swede, was at work. When I told him there was only an hour left, he replied: \u201cOMG, I must go home now!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A browser release. Imagine leaving work early for a browser release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Google was still \u201ccool\u201d then, and the web still felt young. We were curious about everything. We didn\u2019t know what was coming next, only that something always seemed to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking back, I don\u2019t think those days were necessarily better than today. The internet is infinitely more useful now. I can sit in here, in the Maritimes, and have a video call with Sweden, build a website on an Icelandic domain, learn French with an owl, and look up almost anything in seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What I\u2019m grateful for is having seen both worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember occupied phone lines, noisy modems, and waiting. Waiting for connections, waiting for downloads, waiting for invitations. Because I remember all that, I never quite lose my appreciation for what we have now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps that\u2019s the real gift of having lived through a period of change. You don\u2019t take the present for granted quite so easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And every now and then, when I hear the Hamster Dance tune in my head, I\u2019m reminded of a time when the internet was new, strange, exciting, and full of possibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m very glad I was there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don\u2019t think the early internet was better than today\u2019s internet. But having lived through dial-up connections, Gmail invites, and the excitement of a Chrome release makes me appreciate what we have now all the more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ai_generated_summary":"","wpai_meta_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,8,15,11,12,9,10],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-generic","tag-early-internet","tag-friendfeed","tag-gmail","tag-google","tag-internet","tag-memories","tag-theweb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webby.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webby.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webby.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webby.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webby.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/webby.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159,"href":"https:\/\/webby.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webby.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webby.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webby.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webby.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}