Chapter 19. How the Web Puts It All at Your Fingertips

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Just a few editions ago when I got to this part of the book, I used to compare the World Wide Web to a Model A Ford. It got us where we wanted to go in cyberspace, but it was cantankerous and slow—slated for better things, to be sure, but at some time in the far, far future. And no one today could imagine what an enormous, pervasive effect the Internet is going...blah, blah, blah.

The far future’s not as far off as it used to be. In just a few years, the Web has lost most symptoms of terminal crankiness. It’s turned out to be a bomb for tasks that would have seemed a natural. (Ordered any ...

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