In this article, the author talks about the growth of the Internet and how essentially no one saw it coming. And even when it did arrive, no one nearly predicted the explosion that it would make on everyday life today. I can relate to this, as can anyone who has watched this phenomenon grow from its Netscape infancy to a vital necessity for everyday life. I will never forget having a conversation with a friend who just got this job at a company called Microsoft in Seattle. He was trying to explain what WWW meant and how he learned to send e-mail to his girlfriend on the East Coast. I could not wrap my head around the concept of sending mail, without holding it in my hands and affixing appropriate postage. And yet here we are today.

I too, like the author here, wonder how it is possible that we get so surprised by what technology does for us and how it affects our everyday lives. But as the author points out, while many techno predictions were made for the 1990's and beyond, the reason no one predicted the Internet was because it was simply a bigger concept than could be conjured by even the most brilliant minds. Which is why, when the author asks "how do we make additional predictions" the answer is we simply can't. This is why they are called predictions, and why we will continue to be surprised at what the geniuses of today create for the average Joes of tomorrow. Yes, the question itself is worth about $64 trillion today, and in about 10 years, even more valuable