A strange thing happened in the 1990s, something that had not happened in nearly a hundred years: a technological revolution reoriented the entire economy and revolutionized the way people thought and the way they lived. The last time it had happened was at the turn of the twentieth century. Then, the spread of the automobile and its modern manufacturing processes changed the way people lived, worked, and thought about ideas such as distance and time. In the 1990s, it was the Internet that changed everything.

Personal computers (PCs) had been growing in popularity through the 1980s, but it was the invention of the World Wide Web and the widespread use of e-mail (along with a host of other technological advances) that turned PCs from work machines into tools for living. The World Wide Web allowed individuals and businesses to share information with other computer...