A Few Thoughts on the Internet - The Brushpainter

[Paul W. Schleck]

"I have always thought of the 'Wild West' as a metaphor for the
development of on-line communities, and am pleased to see a good summary
of that concept here. An initial unexploited frontier of seemingly
unlimited resources, followed by unrealistic promises of utopia,
followed by changes in the demographics and number of settlers, followed
by anarchy and range wars, followed by law and order being imposed by
both financial and self-preservation interests, but at a
price. Incidentally, I found this piece as a result of an occasional
Google Search I do for 'Usenet' and 'dead'. Usenet is not dead, but we
are definitely in a post-Usenet era."

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicUsenet/comments/uq8upz/a_few_thoughts_on_the_internet_the_brushpainter/