I'm not sure what lambasting this guy for being wrong adds to discussion.
Really, I want to see a sensible critique of the final paragraph. It is the most interesting one. I see the Internet as fostering community, but never replacing it. Most social sites today are atrocious, quality-wise, and suffer the exact same symptoms he ran into.
Likely someone posted this not to ridicule Cliff Stoll, who is a wonderful and charming writer, but to point out the similarity between his idea that the internet is a poor substitute for existing systems and will not hold up to its promises and the sea of incredulity about the idea of Amazon ever successfully delivering via drone, or even Amazon suggesting that they will try.
I'd extend that comparison to the reflexive outrage about self-driving cars, Google Glass, MOOCs, Soylent, Bitcoin, Wolfram|Alpha, Hyperloop, Tesla, and similar interesting projects that, for whatever reason, are described as doomed to failure or labeled as harbingers of the collapse of civilization.
Oh, and about that last paragraph. Cliff Stoll is almost entirely right--the internet is a terrible substitute for many kinds of human contact if there is a direct comparison between the two. That argument is still being made today. Google Hangouts does not beat a face to face meeting with a friend or business partner, following a live concert online is sad compared to being there, and few would prefer "cybersex" to the real thing.
But where Stoll is wrong is the exact reason why the internet succeeded when he thought it would fail. The internet succeeds where it can substitute real life where the real life version is not possible. It should be easy to come up with all sorts of those scenarios, including the ones Stoll mentioned.
Really, I want to see a sensible critique of the final paragraph. It is the most interesting one. I see the Internet as fostering community, but never replacing it. Most social sites today are atrocious, quality-wise, and suffer the exact same symptoms he ran into.