My uncle's 1995 take on 'the internet fad' still haunts me

Visited my uncle in Cleveland last month. He was cleaning out his office and found a stack of old computer magazines. He pointed to a circled article from 1995 that said the internet would never replace the phone book for local business. Then he laughed and said he still thinks email is just a passing thing, like fax machines. I tried to explain how much has changed since then, but he just shrugged and said 'people will always prefer talking face to face.' It hit different because this guy isn't dumb, he ran a successful hardware store for 30 years. Made me wonder how many other rock solid predictions from back then are sitting in attics right now, waiting to age badly. Anyone else have a relative with a confidently wrong tech take that they refuse to let go of?

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felixward27d ago

Whoa, this actually makes me think about the flip side though. We always laugh at the predictions that were wrong, but nobody talks about the ones that were right. Your uncle probably had some calls that were spot on, like how big box stores would crush small hardware shops. The thing is, we only save the embarrassing takes in magazines and family stories. The internet changed business, sure, but people still buy stuff from people they trust in person. Maybe he's not fully wrong, just early on a different curve.