The Alphaville Herald

Love Letters To The Net

by onder on 30/07/07 at 9:36 am

by Onder Skall

Remember people putting “cyber” in front of everything? Remember articles defining what an “emoticon” was?

Suddenly… VERY suddenly… everything changed. That network not only became mainstream, it also fundamentally changed the lives of a lot of people. The isolated had company. The uneducated gained knowledge. The dreamers touched their dreams.

The Internet really means something to a lot of people now, and that has nothing to do with technological marvels. Below I’ve collected moments of passion (with links to the full stories) from savetheinternet.com detailing how much the Internet has made a real difference in the lives of these people.

None of them are CEOs or celebrities or historical figures. They’re regular folk, and they can’t imagine a world without the net.

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My significant other and I are living with AIDS, sadly my partner no longer is able to move about as freely as before. His survival depends on his ability to communicate with others in his position, the access of most updated research and treatments. It also provides us with much needed fun when things get just too hard to bear.
- power Leyba (full story)

I am a small screen printing business owner who has been able to take advantage of the openness of the internet as it has been up until now in order to create a thriving business that markets to a niche that would otherwise be unmarketable. I am not rich and I was not raised rich, but I have been able to climb out of debt and really become more financially secure.
- Christopher Loch (full story)

My family is far flung. My sons are in Maine and Southern France. I have brothers in Atlanta and South Carolina and a sister in West Virginia. My wife’s family is in Ohio. We’re in San Francisco. We use a family website to communicate with one another… little stories of daily life. It’s a big part of our lives.
- Marcus Rector (full story)

The internet has fundamentally changed my life. I simply cannot overstate how important it is to me, and everyone else. It is my business lifeblood, and an immeasurable asset to my personal life. I am a self-taught graphics artist and musician, and care for my aged mother at home. The internet allows me to work at home while being immediately available if she needs me.
- Boyd Williamson (full story)

I became disabled in 2003 due to an industrial accident in 2002 and my life has been altered permanently.I can’t do the things I used to do because of physical limitations.I have learned about the internet from my son’s and now have some experience with using a computer. […] This is important because it facilitates my ability to be a better father to my son’s.We can communicate at any time as long as we have internet access.This is vitally important because we live apart from each other physically,first from a divorce and now because of college.There is an awakening going on in America about the importance of the father’s participation in parenting and if I am to be involved in my son’s lives,I need the internet to do so.
- Mark Stone (full story)

The Internet has been around all of my educated life. It has always been a free, open, equal source of information & entertainment. It was a magical place where anyone could be famous, if they had good enough material. And I could be a part of it!
- Taldar Baddley (full story)

Does everything have to be stamped, indexed, filed, and regulated; don’t all of you have enough ways to annoy us? My name is Scott Belbey. I’m 33 years old. I’m a blogger, a Libertarian, and I also have an advanced case of Multiple Sclerosis. I’d rather not have to deal with limitations imposed by corporations pertaining to what I can and cannot access on the Internet. I think I’ve got enough limitations these days.
- Scott Belbey (full story)

I lost my job four years ago. I was computer illiterate then. I found out immediately how essential computer knowledge and the Information Superhighway are to any job search.
After acquiring my first pc, I learned how to surf the Internet, to train online in MS Office skills so I could make a career change, and I even took a college course online! (I got an ‘A’!)
- William Leavy Jr. (full story)

Me and a group of friends have built a media company strictly on the basis that we need no distributer or resaler and can go straight to the public. This is a very common model for young entrepreneurs with big ambitions.
- Peter Toh (full story)

The internet is my only outlet of getting my art and what I have to say out to the real world.
- Tyler Murphy (full story)

I am a senior citizen, grandmother. The internet is a huge boon to free speech and access to information. Either you are for this wholeheartedly, in classic American fashion, or you are a greedy sort trying to figure out a way to either make a profit on it, and/or control the access people have to information and free speech.
- g. l. Williams (full story)

For many years I was the webmaster and executive director of a very small non-profit corporation with an international client base clustered in chapters scattered around the US and Canada. Our website was one of our major tools for connecting to potential new clients as well as staying connected with our existing clients. We are an education and support organization with almost no operating money to work with. Our web hosting was provided as a free service by a concerned, civic-minded hosting company. In addition we used a free, web-based, email-list service to provide a direct communication link among the leaders of our various chapters, myself and our Board of Directors.
During the years I was executive director we moved from 7 chapters in the US to 40+ chapters in the US and Canada. I doubt that we could have made that growth happen without the use of the internet. And we could not have used the internet successfully if we had to pay some communications giant a significant fee for access.
- Alex Keppeler (full story)

I am a point in my life where my full-time job is to look for a full-time job. It’s exhausting and disheartening. Why? I’ve been unemployed for almost a year now. I have a graduate level degree. If I did not have access to the internet, I would be unable to pursue my search, and although daunting at times, how might I continue to contribute to society? The idea of freedom – in equal distribution – doesn’t have a tag name on it. No one invented it. It was a discovery meant to be shared by all.
- ellen piangerelli (full story)