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Smartphones Made the Internet Ambient
In 1999 I was running a web hosting business out of real server racks, selling dedicated machines to customers who mostly reached them from Windows desktops sitting on furniture. The endpoints were known. They lived in offices and bedrooms. They plugged into the wall. If you wanted to manage your server, you sat down at a desk and did it.
Netflix launched its rental service in April 1998. I was running PowerSurge at the time, deploying dedicated servers and trying to make DNS manageable for people who should not have to love raw BIND configs. We were on the same internet, building entirely different things. They were betting the network was good enough to manage the logistics of physical media. I was betting the network was good enough to run a hosting business. We were both right, and both bets worked for a while.
PlotThing is a comprehensive story management and writing application I'm building. It provides writers with tools to organize their creative work and export directly to publishing formats.