"The most bemusing aspect imo is the recognition of how very new this whole thing is"

Depends what circle you move in I guess...

Cause from what I've seen, most of the people like me who were 'there' really before there was any (or much) "There" there tend to think of the internet as a HUGE let-down... We've seen in fiction what it COULD be, but the reality, it's a huge funnel, dumping reams and reams of commercial porn and self-important ranting into your home...

Even the so called 'havens' in cyberspace aren't HALF what they could be...

"huge volumes of high-speed shallow analyses"

Here, frigg'n here...

"downgrading the gems of our pre-cyber civilization"
I think it's more like we just don't 'get' how we 'could' be uaing the gem that is cyberspace... The porn industry kinda gets it...