The net is big. Spilling onto the desktops of millions of people, gathering more news coverage than your average natural disaster, the Internet siphons bits from the most remote pockets of the globe. But no matter how big it seems today, tomorrow the net will be even bigger. Well, for one thing given current growth rates, by 2003 there will be more people surfing the net than living on the planet. As much as I enjoy peering into our collective electronic psyche, the next two billion users might prefer eating over navigating the web.
Exponential growth is real, but so are limits to growth.
A single bacteria dining on a vat of sugar water can double every hour until it's progeny run out of food. Even if you aren't fluent with exponential growth, common sense dictates if you start with 100 pounds of sugar water and one bacteria, you can't rear more than 100 pounds of bacterial offspring. Similarly, if you want to estimate how many people could possibly attend a Swirlies' concert, you might extrapolate ticket sales from the last few year's performances. But no matter how many people like their music, realistically you can't sell more tickets than actual concert seats. Well, to surf the net you must have a seat at a computer.