My friendships last longer. I’m still in touch with people I worked with in the ’80s even though
in the real world, I forget relationships the way I flick crumbs off a table.

Not only is there a gazillion times more information available, we expect the chain of information never to end. Whatever the topic, we expect to be able to browse indefinitely.

Every conceivable topic has its own site and its own cluster of people around it.

If I don’t trust the voice of authority, all I have to do is turn my head a quarter turn to hear the voices of those whose stories that voice is re-telling.

Our kids take it for granted that they can publish to the entire world without first having to get their writing accepted by a publisher.

Everyday I receive email from people I’ve never met pointing out amazing, funny, heart-breaking and sometimes merely amusing sites.

Those who we know by reputation are no longer inaccessible on their own private Olympus. It’s likely we can find their email address. And when we write, we may well get an answer.

The largest network of human creativity and history’s best operating system have both been created by distributed networks of people who never once have sat in on a weekly status meeting about the projects.