Irony: this post is now on the internet, which was first implemented by a CERN CompSci looking for an easy way of distributing scientific data between people working in different areas of a vast site.
Pedantic: "The Internet" isn't "The World-Wide Web".
HTH, HAND.
(The point stands, I suspect. I don't imagine there'd be quite as many adverts with "Enter our competition: just go to rec.food.macdonalds and post why you like us so much!", or "Gopher us at 50.57.34.52 to get better deals on your holidays!", or "Send an email to promos @ couponplace.com with the subject 'I Want Free Stuff!', to get printable vouchers by return!", or "archie.google.com - *the* place to find things!". And would anything like Facebook or Twitter[1] have arisen, perched upon some
other 'OSI level 7/8' medium, in a non-webby world? Although Gopher
might have done much better, if it hadn't been out-competed for various reasons[2].)
[1] Actually, potentially Twitter might have done, being in part derived from the ideas behind SMS technology (circa 1985, IIRC), but without the same popularisation of "The Internet"/"The Web", would there have been the same drive for the current complexity of data communications possible on mobile devices (and thus the devices themselves)? Probably no AndroidOS, of course.
[2] I gophered quite a bit, in the early days, but then there was the whole different approach to IP which meant that by the time the 'AOL' set had had their fill of a now 'Eternally-Septembered' Usenet, the Web was the way to go... Well, it's all speculative. You know all the books about "What would have happened if WW2 had ended up differently"? Well, I imagine that in 50 years or so, there'll be (online, interactive, dynamic) speculative fiction written about a non-W3 'history'.
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Topic: SCIENCE, Gravitational waves, and the whole LIGO OST! (Read 489806 times)