I'm not old enough to have experienced Usenet. For those who remember Usenet: Do you believe that Eternal September was a failure of cultural transmission? Or was it more of a human capital thing? (Early adopters/academics tend to be better-behaved users?)
Another way of thinking about it: Suppose the exact same userbase had joined Usenet, but they trickled in gradually instead of flooding in all at once. How much would that have changed the outcome?
FWIW I used to think it was human capital, but have updated more towards cultural explanations. For example, it seems fairly common for academics to make fools of themselves online nowadays.
alt Hacker News
I'm not old enough to have experienced Usenet. For those who remember Usenet: Do you believe that Eternal September was a failure of cultural transmission? Or was it more of a human capital thing? (Early adopters/academics tend to be better-behaved users?)
Another way of thinking about it: Suppose the exact same userbase had joined Usenet, but they trickled in gradually instead of flooding in all at once. How much would that have changed the outcome?
FWIW I used to think it was human capital, but have updated more towards cultural explanations. For example, it seems fairly common for academics to make fools of themselves online nowadays.