People have focussed enormously on browsers and the browser world, but the browser is only as useful as the stuff you're looking at with it. Sure, it's a nice thing, and for us software guys that want to get down to the guts of it there's a variety of strengths and weaknesses and we can be plenty fascinated. But in terms of people, what matters is the information they can do. You see that in the enormous excitement about Java, which I'm something of a curmudgeon about. Programming languages ultimately solve very little.
Programming languages allow people to express their ideas as software perhaps a little bit easier.
So you have to say the interesting thing about Java will be programs people create in Java. They might be a little easier, they might not, and we'll have to see how it develops. But a market which is obsessed with the tools and the appurtenances rather than the actual effects is clearly focussing on the wrong thing. If any sanity reigns, a year from now we'll find people are going to be focussing on what people are using the Internet for, what people are using these tools for, and not on the tools and the standards and the things themselves. As we should be.