While clearly not what FC in mind when his thoughts crystallized around the idea and progress of the Web, he would certainly be intrigued by a recent NY Times article about a teenage boy who used (and was used by) webcams to create a porn kingdom. Perversions have a way of pushing people to make the most of what's available, and that was clearly the case there. The boy developed an audience of men from around the world, eventually making a great deal of money trying to satisfy the unsatisfiable -- and not surprisingly at a great cost to himself.

Clearly, in those relationships there was nothing empathetic. Those were wolves feeding off prey that at times did take advantage right back at them. There was no sympathy even, or understanding. It was all about taking.

But as disappointing as these kinds of developments are -- they are not only destructive in what they are, but they magnify the loss of what could have been -- they are not sufficient to remove the validity and beauty of FC's vision. He didn't once expect that the emergence of the Internet would overnight bring a culmination of humankind's centuries of work. The Internet is an important, ongoing evolution. And throughout it there were (and are) bound to be malignancies.