> I'm not aware of a single cynic who successfully predicted how things actually ended up turning out.

Let's change that here and now! :)

I was one of the optimists in the very early 2000s when I attended a talk by Columbia professor Eli Noam. In 2002, he wrote an article in the Financial Times called "Why the internet is bad for democracy" which essentially predicted the world is we know it.

I immediately saw that he was right, at least with regard to the fact that it COULD turn out as it has, in fact, turned out. He fundamentally changed my view, way back then. In 2005 a version was published in a more academic context: “Why the Internet is bad for democracy.” Communications of the ACM 48(10): 57–58 (2005).

Here's the FT version: https://www.citicolumbia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Why-...