You know, I was just a little kid when history "ended" as the Wall came down and the USSR fell apart, but I do remember the sense of optimism from then. I remember being able to walk down the street by myself to the corner store -- wherever do you see those anymore? -- out of sight of the house, when I wasn't even ten years old, without anyone having to worry if I was safe or not.

I was around when Windows 95 came out, and I pissed off my best friend's parents by installing a pirated copy of it on their computer. I first got access to the internet in '98 through a BBS, and shortly afterwards through a real ISP connection. It was still the "World Wide Web" back then, when Gopher was still a recent memory. They called it "the information superhighway" and it was. There was so much you could find and learn if you just looked for it, from every corner of the globe and from any perspective.

I lived through the entire era of the free and open internet, and I watched as it was closed off, piece by piece, into the walled gardens of "Web 2.0" -- no longer a web at all, nothing but a glorified interactive cable TV subscription. I saw it. All that there was, all that's been lost, all that could have been. And I miss it so much.