Here’s a video clip of Apple’s Steve Jobs discussing the future of the web way back in 1995. He was correct. The transcript is below the video.
The web is incredibly exciting because it is the fulfilment of a lot of our dreams that the computer would ultimately not be primarily a device for computation but metamorphosize into a device for communication. And with he web that finally happening.
And secondly it’s exciting because Microsoft doesn’t own it. and therefore there’s a tremendous amount of innovation happening. So I think that the web is going to be profound in what it does to our society. As you know, about 15% of the goods and series in the US are sold via catalogues or over the television. All that’s going to go on the web and more.
Billions and billions, soon tens of billions of dollars worth of goods and services are going to be sold on the web. A way to think about it is, it’s the ultimate direct to customer distribution channel. Another way to think about it is the smallest company in the world can look as large as the largest company in the world on the web.
So, I guess I think the web, as we look back ten years from now, the web is going to be the defining technology, the defining social moment for computing. And I think it’s going to be huge. I think it’s breathed a whole new generation of life into personal computing. And I think it’s going to be huge, yeah.
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