Did the Internet Decade Ruin Everything?

Here we go. We’re nearing the end of 2009 and of course that means we’re nearing the end of the first decade of the new century and the new millennium. (That doesn’t mean we won’t be celebrating it next year as well, as this gives everybody two chances to celebrate the end of a decade.) So with that, the year end articles are beginning to crop up, as are the end of a decade articles.

Dan Lyons has penned a piece for Newsweek, his real job, (he’s also Fake Steve Jobs), that has the wonderfully satiric title, A Decade of Destruction, positing that the Internet with its disruptive forces ruined everything. Again, there’s satire at play here, but I’m guessing there are a few folks in a few industries who wouldn’t see it that way. Based on the comments to Lyons’ post there are also some who don’t recognize satire when they see it either. I’m guessing there are unintentional similarities between the two camps.

The piece is worth a read, even though it chronicles what most already know. But the perspective it lends is intriguing if you read between the lines and pay attention to some of the struggles within the new Internet interests. While business models and entrenched industries may have found themselves turned topsy-turvey  due to the rise of the Internet, newer players currently surfing upright on the new wave of the Internet are just as capable of tumbling off into the drink as their predecessors by making some of the same mistakes. The one thing that the Internet really changed is that human foibles are now more on display than ever before.