It is common knowledge that we as a whole take technology for granted. At this very minute you are reading my words projected onto your screen through an immensely complicated mathematical processes involving 1s and 0s that have been transmitted from some undisclosed location to your machine after being sent to the undisclosed location by myself from a similar machine via a mix of telephone wires and other cables. I’m hazy on the specifics and am fairly certain that the internet runs on magic.
We take the internet for granted and we take many of the things we have come to rely on for granted too. I still remember a time when mobile phones were small if you could squeeze one inside a briefcase and when “wireless” meant “not plugged in which is why it’s not working” (I’m not quite old enough to associate wireless with a radio). Now we not only take mind blowing technology for granted, if it stops working for a second we become Bruce Banner on a bad day.
The one that always trips me up that I take for granted is online video on demand and broadcast technology. In other words, sites like YouTube, Blip TV, Justin TV, Vimeo and several others sat across the internet are an absolute wonder when you stop and think about it.
If you had come up to me when I was 11 and told me that within about ten years, anyone could make their own TV show and put it somewhere where the world can see it, I would have laughed. After all, not even the BBC has that sort of potential audience.