I figure everyone here knows I'm a grumply curmudgeon who was there when it all started:

But I'm going to take the opposite tack from what you expect.

My sister is writing a book about her area of expertise. She needs a URL and web site and blog and and and... all the usual shit.

In less than 10 minutes at domains.google.com, I owned her entire URL intellectual property landscape (about 12 in total, I think), set up the email accounts on her domains, the blog, and got all of the privacy controls in place.

Her designer can now do the graphical work, and my sister can begin writing her content.

In a year, she will be a published author, with all the pertinent domains and social media accounts, and will be able to bring her skills to the people who need them, regardless of their preferred form of media consumption.

I feel like the internet is coming back around again... it began as a place for people to create things. Then it became a glorified TV, and just a place to consume. But now, people are empowered to create again, without needing to learn the secret handshake and coded/obscure/intentionally-obtuse language to operate the tools.

Obama won because he leveraged the earliest version of these tools.

AOC continues to set the public conversation with her ability to leverage the modern version of those same tools.

Greta Thurnberg and a whole passel of "kids" are BORN with these tools, and use them as naturally as I use a pen.

And, as legitimate voices speak their minds and find their audiences, those audiences now have an incredible ability to amplify that message to their circles.

We are juuuuuuuust at the beginning of this. The baby has just learned to crawl, and is going to be walking - then running - in no time.

I find this very exciting. I love that voices can now be heard that would have been stifled before. Even the assholes. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and the assholes won't survive long in the blinding light of day. (Yes, they will always be there. Nazis and all the other shitweasels who have to blame others for their failure to have a meaningful life. But fuck em. They will be drowned out and left behind by everyone else as the world moves forward.)

I see a positive future.

I always do.