Way back in the early days, when using the internet was really about email, USENET, ftp, etc the connected world used forums, which were run by sundry geeks all over the place.

When the World Wide Web coalesced (and it was a community effort, even if certain individuals like Berners-Lee played the front role) the transformation of the user interfaces to a globally connected community made using the internet a much more consuming affair.

Mark-up languages had been around for a while, and Postscript (itself a computer language in which one can write just about any kind of program) had already shown its value.

The early days of the Internet and then the WWW really had many players doing all sorts of inventive things. It was more level of a playing ground (though the US government held considerable power over the whole affair through funding and backbone connectivity between both DoE and DoD labs.)

So Facebook emerged after this democratic period, if I may use that word.

Facebook is what happens when the average (not computer savvy) consumer desires a quick and easy way to interact with others.

The effort of having to connect to multiple forums, email, etc. was too much especially for many older people who did not grow up playing on an Atari.

I don’t like Facebook, but I fully believe that something like it had to happen.