PART 1: THE INTERNET IS HAVING A KODAK MOMENT

Just as our early ancestors had no understanding of how fire would fundamentally alter human evolution – it was just a very convenient tool – the inventors of key technologies which later became the plumbing of the internet had no idea what they were truly creating.

So among other things, Web 2.0 represents the shift to an internet that was conversational & interactive.

And as such, both Google & Facebook have become the “IQ test” for customer acquisition – you’d have to be insane not to use them.

But while in many ways more limited, the early web also provided a far more level playing field to its early settlers. As there were no “cities” yet per se, the most valuable virtual real estate hadn’t yet accreted to a small cabal of gatekeepers.

And finally, adding the personalized Newsfeed was the killer app that FB needed to truly become endemic. This transformed the platform into the perfect dopamine storm; users logged in and experienced the optimal confluence of a social inbox + voyeurism + curated news + validation

The fact that you can count on one hand the number of CEO’s who effectively control 95% of the internet experience as we know it is pretty astounding.

Key infrastructure didn’t exist yet. We take it for granted today, but there was no such thing as 3PL fulfillment, same-day shipping, supply-chain automation, etc. back in the dot-com boom.

Amazon owns the shopper. From its start here status for buying anything online to its world-class fulfillment & logistics infrastructure, the Amazon ecommerce experience is unmatched – nothing else even comes close.

Google owns all the starting points. Just flipped open the laptop? Open Chrome. Need to find something? Google Search. Time to check your email? Gmail. Using a non-Apple smartphone? Android. Need to go somewhere? Google Maps / Waze. Looking for a video? Youtube. Need to work on something? Google Docs/Drive. And the list goes on.

For the most part, Web 1.0 was a fairly lonely experience – both for homesteaders & visitors. There was a lot to see, but there wasn’t that much to do.