Remember in the early, dot-com days of the Internet there were two classes of Internet users, dialup users and AOL users? The dialup users had access to the full Internet (well, full for the time, anyway) and AOL users got a sanitized, prepackaged version of the Internet at best. We dialup users looked down on the AOL users and their “walled-garden” system.

It dawned on me today that Facebook is the new AOL. Facebook has this whole environment where things are controlled and it’s set apart from the rest of the Internet. There are some people whose online experience consists almost completely of Facebook. It’s a walled-garden just like AOL.

I’ve been on the Internet since 1992, the same year that AOL for Windows debuted. Seventeen years later we are back where we started.

(You clever MT.Net readers are different, though. The fact that you’re reading this shows you’re not part of the unwashed masses. Pat yourselves on the back.)