Comment by wat10000

There was the sense that tech and the internet would change human systems. Information wants to be free and all that. The individual power granted by tech would lead to individual liberty. Traditional power structures would crumble when faced with this.

We didn't realize that it only felt that way because the people with power didn't care yet. Tech was like an ant crawling across a picnic blanket and thinking it's powerful because the people aren't doing anything about it. Once traditional power structures woke up to tech and the internet, they coopted it all.