In the early 2000s I was very into Flash movies and animations, something that would later help me as a UI/UX developer. I would consume many different Flash movies and games, and one in particular stood out to me. It was a video predicting a dark future for the internet, and one that could actually happen.
Origin
Released in 2004, EPIC 2004 is a short mockumentary about the “history” of the internet. Set in 2014, it is presented by the “Museum of Media History,” and organisation invented for the video. It was based on a presentation given by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson at the Poynter Institute.
Though Flash is no longer really used on the internet these days, the video has been preserved, both at the Internet Archive and on Youtube:
I first watched this video in 2004 or 2005, unaware of its origins. I remember the themes of corporations essentially taking over the internet and algorithms taking over our lives leaving me feeling hollow, yet also hopeful we could change things for the better.
But how much did the video actually get right?
True History
The start of the video covers the history of the internet as it actually happened. Starting with the invention of the internet by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989, it introduces the main characters that the video will later use to make its predictions.
It introduces Amazon’s suggestions in 1994, Google’s search engine in 1998, Blogger and Google News in 1999, followed by Friendster in 2002. Amazon releases A9, its own search engine. Then in 2003, Google buys Blogger.
2004 is presented of the beginning of the end. Gmail rises as competition Hotmail. Microsoft releases its own Newsbot. Google acquires Keyhole (which would become Google Earth).
Finally Reason Magazine sends its subscribers an issue with satellite photos of their homes on the cover. The same magazine contains personal information about each of their subscribers. It was a stunt to demonstrate how privacy is disappearing from the internet.
All of these things were real events leading up to 2004. Even the Reason Magazine stunt. At this point the video has set up the main themes for its predictions: monopolisation and loss of privacy. It seamlessly slides into fiction as it starts to predict the future of the internet.
Predictions
The latter part of the video tells the history leading up to the release of EPIC 2014, the end game of the internet as seen by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson. It goes year-by-year, naming key events just as in the first half of the video.
2005
The first predictions start in 2005. Microsoft buys Friendster. Apple comes out with the WifiPod allowing people to message each other on the go. Google unveils the Google Grid, a platform offering unlimited space and bandwidth that can store anything that users can share with each other.
Microsoft doesn’t seem to have entered into the social media space, with the exception of it’s LIVE gaming platforms. It is interesting to note, however, that in 2011 Friendster was rebranded as social gaming platform. It never got acquired and ultimately shut down in 2015.
Microsoft did acquire LinkedIn in 2016, however, which is a professional networking site. While not what most would consider social media, it essentially serves the same function for businesses and their employees.
The WifiPod never existed, however Apple would start developing the iPhone in secret in 2005, finally releasing it in 2007. While it does much more than just allow messages to be sent “on the go,” it was one of the earliest smart phones and would have a huge influence on the mobile phone industry.
Google would release Google Drive in 2012, allowing people to store and share their files on the “Cloud.” Similar services now exist with other companies, such as Apple’s iCloud, and Microsoft’s OneDrive.
2007
Next the video tells us about Microsoft’s Newsbotster, a social news network that ranks and sorts news articles. It also allows users to comment on every article they read.
In 2014 Microsoft would redesign MSN to be a news aggregator, allowing for personalised news, weather, entertainment and more. Users can comment on articles using this platform, so it fits the description of Newsbotster as described in the video.
The tricky part is the “social” element, as MSN feels more like a personal tool than a place you would go to talk about news articles with other people. A closer analogy might be Digg, launched in late 2004; then later reddit, launched in 2005. Neither are created by Microsoft, of course.
2008
In 2008 Google and Amazon merge to form Googlezon. Googlezon is a tool that takes content and splices stories together to create unique content for each user.
While this merger obviously never happened, there have been many major acquisitions over the last decade, including Meta’s purchase of Instagram and Microsoft’s buying of Activision/Blizzard/King.
The Googlezon tool itself doesn’t technically exist, however it is very similar to what LLMs are doing these days, and it wouldn’t be too tricky to create a tool that does what Googlezon does in the video.
2010
2010 brings us to the “News Wars” between Microsoft and Googlezon. These are notable in that no actual news organisations take part.
This part of the video is vague in describing what the news wars actually are, but presumably it’s for dominance of the news market.
There is a close event that did occur in 2009: Microsoft created Bing, a search engine that would compete with Google for dominance.
2011
In 2011, The New York Times is said to have sued Googlezon, claiming that fact-stripping robots are a violation of copyright law. They lose the case in the Supreme Court.
This is also an event that never really occurred. However, what is interesting is that it is starting to happen now. Content scraping has long been a core part of how the internet works, but LLMs have taken this to the next level.
Artists, news organisations, and writers claim that AI has used their content without permission, and that their outputs are a violation of copyright law. There are lawsuits happening all the time, and now there are tools designed to poison AI’s learning process.
The video is also wrong about the outcome of these lawsuits. There is actually a good chance many of these lawsuits may be successful, and that the AI bubble is bursting. The future of AI is, as yet, still uncertain.
2014
The video ends with Googlezon’s final product, EPIC, the Evolving Personalised Information Construct. Users can contribute any information they know to the Google Grid, and it will automatically create news tailored to any individuals without any journalists involved. People are paid a cut of the advertising revenue based on how popular their content becomes. The New York Times becomes a print-only medium for the elite and the elderly.
This is social media. The algorithms on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or anything else we use today are based on user-submitted content and feed us information that informs our world-view. People get paid small cuts of advertising revenue if they become popular enough. AI is becoming a part of this infrastructure too, with many social media accounts publishing nothing but AI generated content.
The New York Times isn’t print-only, but many news organisations have moved to the subscription model. They are now news organisations for the elite or, at least, for anyone willing to pay for news reported by actual journalists.
Conclusion
The details aren’t quite right, and the timeline is off by around a decade, but it’s surprising how much of the future EPIC 2014 actually got right. It predicted a future where the internet would be monopolised, where algorithms would create feedback loops, where people would scrabble around creating content in an attempt to make money.
When EPIC 2014 was created, social media was still young, and LLMs were nowhere near as powerful as they are today. Yet it predicted how these things would be used even if it didn’t know what technologies would use them.
The video ends by suggesting that “perhaps there was another way.” And maybe there still is. Social media has taken over the internet, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Anyone can create and make things on the internet. Blogs, videos, games, and so on. Setting up a website isn’t a difficult thing to do. I’d love to see a return to the days when everyone could just create their own website and not rely on social media to promote their creations.
But maybe that’s just me growing old and nostalgiac.
