The modern technology works both ways. In fact all kinds of things that pushed us into a mass society way of doing things - capitalist mass society or socialist mass society, scratch them and beneath the skin there's an awful lot of unpleasnt similarities - cease to be such big problems with a bit of modern technology.

Whether Microsoft and IBM actually were cricial in kickstarting the internet - well that may be true, though I know a lot of people would challenge it, but they sure as hell aren't necessary now we've got it.