In 2011, Marc Andreessen, the renowned venture capitalist behind Andreessen Horowitz, wrote his influential article, “Why Software Is Eating the World,” emphasizing a fundamental truth—software’s critical role in transforming virtually every business sector. Marc’s case was prescient, and in many ways, the software revolution did take root. However, when we take a step back and view it through a broader lens, an even more profound truth emerges: if software is eating the world, it is only because the Internet has prepared the feast!
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Funny thing is, If you actually re-read Marc Andreessen’s article you quickly notice that off the bat it is filled with references to the Internet. Look closely at his words, and you will notice how the examples of transformation—Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Netflix—aren’t just software companies per se; they are Internet companies! The Internet is the thread weaving all these innovations together, creating a dynamic, evolving ecosystem that is indeed eating the world, and more significantly, reshaping how we experience it.
In the late 1990s, David Bowie made an almost otherworldly prediction, foreseeing the Internet as an alien force that would fundamentally change everything. Today, we see how right he was. The Internet has done far more than merely influence our lives—it has enveloped them. The Internet is not just a collection of interconnected computers. It is an operating system that has become the backbone of modern civilization. Industries, governments, individuals—we are all plugged into it, often without fully realizing its transformative power. This article aims to trace the history of the Internet—its evolution from the static web of the past to the dynamic, decentralized future—and explore how it has truly eaten the world.
The Genesis: Internet and Web 1.0
The story of the Internet began in the late 1960s with ARPANET, a military experiment designed to create a resilient communication network. In the 1980s, this nascent technology became the foundation for the global network we now call the Internet. However, the Internet’s public face began to emerge in the early 1990s, when Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web—an intuitive system that allowed people to navigate the Internet through a visual interface.
This early phase, known as Web 1.0, was a static, read-only web. Websites were essentially digital brochures, offering information but little in the way of interaction. Companies like Netscape, Yahoo, and AOL provided access to an Internet that was a one-way street—people consumed content, but engagement was minimal. These pioneers gave people their first glimpse of the Internet’s potential, and despite the static nature of Web 1.0, it represented a radical departure from traditional media.
Web 2.0: The Rise of Social Connectivity
The early 2000s brought about Web 2.0. The web transitioned from a read-only platform to a read-write platform, where users could interact, share, and collaborate. Social media platforms like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and content-driven sites like Wikipedia, YouTube, and WordPress became the embodiment of this phase.
The Internet became participatory—a space where anyone could be a content creator, a journalist, or a publisher. The power of crowdsourcing became evident through platforms like Wikipedia and Kickstarter. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn turned people into brands, and influencers into industries. The era of Web 2.0 wasn’t just about new software—it was about new ways for people to connect, engage, and do business.
Web 3.0: Toward a Decentralized Internet
While Web 2.0 brought interactivity and social connectivity, Web 3.0 is transforming the Internet into an even more immersive and autonomous entity. Powered by blockchain, decentralized protocols, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, Web 3.0 envisions an Internet where control shifts away from centralized tech giants and back to individual users.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and decentralized applications (dApps) are leading this charge, proposing new paradigms for finance, ownership, and governance. While content platforms like Facebook and Google dominate Web 2.0 with walled gardens, Web 3.0 aims to break down these barriers by providing more autonomy and privacy for users. Imagine a world where data sovereignty belongs to the individual and digital identities aren’t tied to corporations but to people themselves. That’s the direction Web 3.0 is taking us—an Internet that isn’t just an alien taking over, but a decentralized, peer-to-peer world where anyone has a say in how it evolves.
Internet as the Operating System
I see the Internet as an operating system of our civilization. I imagine it as a digital nervous system that powers every aspect of our lives. Just as a computer operating system like Microsoft Windows OS hosts computer programs and how Apple iOS hosts apps, the Internet is hosting the biggest technological revolutions of our time—software companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are merely the “apps” built atop this vast infrastructure.
Marc Andreessen himself is known for creating Mosaic, one of the first web browsers, and Netscape, which pioneered the early consumer Internet experience. These were groundbreaking pieces of software, but they were really software for the Internet—tools that made the Internet accessible to the masses and helped turn it into the vital ecosystem it is today. In fact the web browser, first created by Tim Berners-Lee, was the first ‘killer app‘ of the internet. This distinction is crucial in understanding the role the Internet has played as an enabler and catalyst for software’s proliferation.
Consider Google—often called a “tech company,” but more precisely, it’s an Internet company. Google’s entire value proposition relies on the Internet. It uses the vast expanse of web data to fuel its search algorithms, provides online advertising services, and hosts its services through cloud platforms that are deeply integrated with the Internet. Without the Internet, Google would lose its core function, becoming irrelevant. On the other hand, NVIDIA is a tech company that makes chips powering graphics for video games, which are increasingly played over the Internet, as well as chips used in AI training and deployment. Even NVIDIA’s technologies, which power everything from gaming to machine learning models, are now heavily intertwined with the Internet—whether it’s for streaming games online or leveraging cloud-based neural networks like those behind ChatGPT.
Consider how our interactions, from shopping to banking, entertainment to healthcare, are governed by Internet-based services. Netflix isn’t just a software company; it’s an Internet-powered entertainment platform. Amazon isn’t merely an e-commerce giant; it’s a comprehensive Internet ecosystem connecting products, logistics, data, and consumers. Even traditional sectors like agriculture, healthcare, and finance are becoming increasingly reliant on the Internet for supply chain logistics, digital health records, and online banking.
Now imagine what would happen if the Internet were suddenly taken away. Life as we know it would unravel almost instantly. While removing some software might slow us down, losing the Internet would send us back decades, if not centuries. Picture waking up one morning and finding that you can’t check social networks, the news, or the weather. You can’t communicate instantly with loved ones or colleagues, use apps, or access artificial intelligence tools. Businesses would collapse, financial transactions would freeze, supply chains would come to a halt, and many of the conveniences we take for granted would vanish overnight. Our reliance on the Internet is so deep that it has become a fundamental part of the infrastructure that holds society together. Without it, we’d be cast back into an analog world ill-prepared for today’s complex demands.
Living on the Internet: The Real-Life Matrix
In many ways, we are already living on the Internet. It is where we socialize, conduct business, find entertainment, and learn. The Internet is evolving into a real-life matrix—an immersive environment that we rely on for almost every aspect of modern living. The shift from being merely “users” to inhabitants of the Internet is well underway. We live through digital avatars, curate our online identities, and increasingly blur the boundaries between online and offline life. In the future, our lives will be run on the Internet as though it were our operating system.
The future could see us integrating even further. Virtual reality and augmented reality may create environments where the physical and digital are indistinguishable. Our very homes could become digitally interconnected spaces, our work and play integrated into virtual realms where the Internet provides the medium for all experiences. From education to social interactions, from business dealings to art, everything may soon exist in a space dominated by the Internet—an all-encompassing digital universe.
Internet Pioneers: The Architects of Connectivity
We owe this transformation to a group of pioneers who envisioned and built the Internet as we know it today. Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn laid the foundations by developing the TCP/IP protocol, while Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web, making the Internet accessible to ordinary users. Marc Andreessen himself co-created Mosaic, the first web browser that made the Internet visually navigable. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Larry Page all contributed by building companies that used the Internet to connect us in ways that were previously unimaginable. Their collective vision turned the Internet from a network into an indispensable part of our daily lives.
David Bowie’s 1999 prediction that the Internet would fundamentally change everything was an understatement. The Internet didn’t just disrupt—it consumed. It has expanded into every nook and cranny of human activity, creating new paradigms in everything from social interaction to global business. We now live in a world where to disconnect from the Internet is almost synonymous with disconnecting from society itself.
The Future: What Lies Beyond Web 3.0?
If the Internet as an operating system feels ubiquitous today, what lies ahead is an even more profound integration of the digital with the physical world. Web 4.0 and beyond could potentially blend augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and the Internet of Things (IoT) into a seamless Internet of Experiences—where every interaction, both online and offline, is interconnected.
We are moving towards a future where immersive metaverses might replace our current digital ecosystems, giving rise to entirely new worlds. Companies like Meta (formerly Facebook) are already investing heavily in the idea of a fully realized digital universe where people work, play, and socialize in a space entirely driven by the Internet. The Internet will evolve from merely being an operating system to being a fabric of existence that underpins reality itself.
The Internet Has Eaten the World—Now What?
The Internet has not just eaten the world; it has rebuilt it from the ground up. Every industry, every institution, and every individual has, in some way, become part of this vast, connected ecosystem. What Marc Andreessen called the triumph of software is, in reality, the triumph of the Internet—the invisible thread that binds us all together. Software may be eating the world, but the Internet cooked the meal, set the table, and invited everyone to dine.
As we look towards a future where the Internet continues to evolve, our challenge will be to ensure that this interconnected ecosystem becomes a force for good—balancing innovation with privacy, progress with equity, and accessibility with autonomy. It’s no longer just about building new “apps” for the Internet’s operating system; it’s about reimagining the very worlds these apps create, and the kind of lives they enable us to live.