> Now imagine showing someone from 1990 what things are like in 2012 with the internet we have today. While they would think it's "neat" and even "amazing", the magic effect would not be there.
I wonder what the biggest "future shock" for (let's say) a 1995 web user visiting the 2012 web? Video and bandwidth seem like the biggest differences, but as you point out, neither are "magic" from a 1995 context.
Video and bandwidth are impressive - 1995 was still painfully slow for many people. People maybe had 56 kbit/s, but perhaps that dropped back to 33.3 kbit/s because of noisy lines. (v90 was approved late 1998). I was stuck on 14.4 kbps for ages. Oh god. ("Sloppy" is apparently a modem speed simulator. (http://www.dallaway.com/sloppy/) )
But I think the magic would be video and bandwidth on a handheld device?
I've noticed that the web has gotten more useful. Google has an answer for more and more things. Wikipedia covers more topics. The qualitative difference is real, but hard to measure, because we can't search the web as it was in 2004, using the google of 2004.
I know I only went halfway back. If you go to 1995, there's a whole class of services that didn't exist.
I wonder what the biggest "future shock" for (let's say) a 1995 web user visiting the 2012 web? Video and bandwidth seem like the biggest differences, but as you point out, neither are "magic" from a 1995 context.