I’ll never forget the first time I saw the World Wide Web. It was 1995. I was in my rented townhome in Alameda, a small island on the east bank of the San Francisco Bay. I already had a dial-up modem plugged into my Mac LC that I used to send graphic files and documents to my lithographers and commercial printers through FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

I don’t know where I heard about Netscape, probably from a business associate. But I remember the afternoon I logged on for the first time. The interface was full-color visual, the first I’d seen. FTP was only black text on a white screen and no images. The Netscape logo — the uppercase N sinking into a black globe against a starry aquamarine sky, was… beautiful.

Once I registered, the next screen had bright, colorful illustrations of a spacecraft, a construction site, a radio tower, and more. Under each drawing white text against the black frames said, “Explore the Net. Company and Products. News. Store. Community.” I was floored, drop-jawed. The interface gave me choices to go anywhere. Netscape was a portal to the world.

I called my roommate into my bedroom/office space to show her what I was seeing on my screen. “This changes everything,” I practically whispered, sure that this portal was the beginning of a connected world I only dreamt of as a kid.

As I sat there clicking on each navigation link, then exploring each site the Netscape browser delivered, I recalled when I was 8 years old, sitting in the back seat of my mother’s huge Chevy, while she drove me and my sister home from school.

“One wish,” my mom asked us spontaneously. “One wish. Right now. If you could have anything you want, what would it be?” She often came up with non-sequiturs like this to fill the void of silence after she’d asked about our day at school and got, “Fine,” from both of us.

I answered instantly. “World peace,” and I meant it. My brother was in Vietnam. We watched the war on TV nightly. I was always afraid I’d spot him among the troops in the jungle, and then see him get shot. “I wish there was no war, and that we all took care of each other instead of fighting so much.”

“That’s a stupid wish,” my sister said, sitting up front in the passenger seat. I cowered in the back seat and shut up. “It’ll never happen. Humans are violent. It’s part of our nature. We can’t change who we are.” She was 2 yrs older than me. Surely, she must be right. She wished for a new purse.

“This changes everything,” I’d said to my roommate as I browsed the internet that first time back in 1995. And I believed it. A portal to the world would let us see how others lived, and let others see what was possible. In 1960s — 1990s U.S., most of us had a place to live, and enough to eat every day. Most kids were vaccinated against horrific diseases. We got a free education, through at least high school, and 20–30% of the population got a college education as well. And in California, college was cheap back then, making it accessible to almost anyone.

My roommate stood over my shoulder staring at my screen as I went from site to site through Netscape’s ‘portal.’ She seemed unmoved by what we were seeing, and in short order went back to her room. I stayed online the rest of the night and into the early morning hours, amazed.

I pursued news sites and read articles from all over the world. We could never again pretend that holocausts weren’t happening. We’d find out about atrocities taking place anywhere, instantly, and the United Nations would have to stop them! The privileged would no longer be able to turn a blind eye to poverty or disease, even in the most remote places in Africa, or the Middle East, seeing it daily on their computers. We could talk to people around the block or in other countries we’d never meet, share ideas, and feelings. We’d see how similar we all are, how we all feel the same things: sad, or happy, or mad, at times. We could connect 24/7, and never feel isolated or lonely again. The internet was a window to the world, and the view would surely motivate all of us to care for each other like never before.

This is the argument I gave to my dad at Saul’s Deli, eating bagels and lox a few years after my first experience on the Netscape browser. As a lover of technology since childhood, he too was on the internet, one of the first adopters in his advanced age group. He shook his head and gave me his indulgent smile, pausing before taking another bite of his bagel.

“The internet changes nothing. It is a tool, like a screwdriver. It won’t change human nature. And it won’t save us,” he said. “We’re going to have to do that. Until we learn to care for each other beyond ourselves, we are doomed.” He took a bite of his bagel and savored the mix of salmon, red onions, cream cheese and bread, satisfied in the moment.

“You’re wrong, Dad,” I exclaimed with certainty. “The internet is connecting the planet. For the first time in human history, we are becoming one world.”

“One very small world, which everyone wants their piece of,” he said. “We’ve invented technology we can’t handle, from the Bomb to this internet. Getting bombarded with information isn’t going to change how we react to it. And the more technology we invent, the more likely we’ll implode with it.” He sighed and looked at me lovingly. “You can’t change the world, baby. Best just to focus on taking care of yourself, and your family.”

It was 1998. I had no idea what was coming, how the internet would evolve into the ugly, manipulative MARKETING PLATFORM it has become. I had no clue that seeing how others live would engender jealousy, promote hate, violence, ignorance, and threaten our democracy daily. But I left Saul’s Deli that morning sure my father was wrong.

As it’s turned out, he wasn’t.