I read this essay in 2003 and it influenced how my business partner and I built our startup. It influenced what possibilities we chased after. But Shirky.com is now off-line:
This is yet another example of the history of the early Web disappearing. Shirky's early essays were fundamental to way we understood the potential of the Web back in 1999-2008.
I actually discovered this while looking for another old Shirky essay which, as far as I can tell, is now entirely gone from the Web.
http://www.shirky.com/
I'm not sure when this happened but I see that Wikipedia has adjusted to this and now links to the archive.org link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_Shirky
This is yet another example of the history of the early Web disappearing. Shirky's early essays were fundamental to way we understood the potential of the Web back in 1999-2008.
I actually discovered this while looking for another old Shirky essay which, as far as I can tell, is now entirely gone from the Web.