Many technologies and practices that have shaped Web 2.0 today date back to the 1990s – and so do the ideas of social media, user-generated content and participatory platforms. Thus, from a media-historical perspective, a lot of the ideas from that period about the future of the Internet have been implemented, albeit without fulfilling the envisioned socio-political utopias.By exploring the history of an alternative web discourse, Clemens Apprich develops a media genealogical understanding which is necessary to think beyond today's pre-dominant concept of socio-technical networks and to intervene in current debates about the Internet.
