What have new generations been led into thinking that the internet is supposed to be? They dont even know what a directory is or what a file path is, because of design that dumbs things down…
It is important, because what people think the internet is and what they value will affect what it will evolve into.
E.g. wikipedia is reflects somehow my view of the internet in the 2000s (Encarta :D)…but for some people today the internet is just social media…or just videos?
Internet of the 90s and early 2000s were introduced as a library where people consulted text for information. There was an introduction (tutorials), a userbase that’s educated and/or eager to learn, and most importantly, it was the wild west where companies didn’t think much of except for just having a .com address. This is where our view of search engines come from - to consult with keywords and read.
This is no longer the case. It’s no longer seen as a library, but a shopping mall where you have advertisements shoved down your throat and flashy stuff that grab your attention. For people who were born after smartphones and grew up without knowing the early stuff, the search engine is… well, do people know or even care about that?
