What will the internet look like 40 years in the future?
In 1995 I was part of a press party that was flown out to Microsoft, where a rueful executive told us, "I'm in charge of the product that Bill Gates said would never happen." It was the launch of Microsoft's first web browser, Internet Explorer. Gates, the richest and most powerful chief executive in the world – and a highly technologically literate one at that – had been an "internet denier" in terms of its transformative nature.
For me there were two memorable aspects of that trip; one was an audience with Gates, with his customary homecut hair and stained shirt. He told the press, "If you can imagine something that might happen technologically, it will probably happen in the next 10 years; if you can't imagine it, it might take a generation." The other was an Internet Explorer T-shirt, which I wore throughout an extended labour two years later. At the time it was an apt metaphor for any kind of technical project delivery.
Forecasting the future of the internet is a horrible business, even in the short term. Those who can do it most successfully are among the richest people on the planet. Being asked what the internet will look like in four years' time is a stretch. Being asked what it will look like in 40 years is bewildering.
