Comment by justinjlynn

It's not just that -- systems like the one Engelbart presented really benefited from all users essentially sharing the same memory space; everyone was on the same computer at the same time. As it appeared to the machine, there was essentially one user and that user was a gestalt of all the people using the system at the time. Now we have a web of different machines, which don't trust each other (because we don't trust each other); we haven't progressed in much the same way because we have much different constraints. In a sense, if Engelbart's system was a completely shared space in which everyone lived and was trusted, then of course our systems are inelegant by comparison. We're driving around in assault vehicles interacting with each other at a distance through signs, signals and the occasional open window. But then again, we're not solving the same problem Engelbart was solving. Can we emulate that experience? Of course we can, but we're going to have to change how it operates quite significantly, in order to have it fit with our differing, more complex, social requirements.