When the first dotcom bubble burst, I predicted that big companies would buy up all the major websites for fire sale prices and put them behind subscription paywalls. “Pay $30/month and get access to all 400 sites in the Yahoo network.”

I underestimated how easy it is to spin up alternative sites. Most of the media brands I thought of as valuable then are shit now, or gone.

And, like everyone, I didn’t anticipate social media. Even Google was still nascent at the time.