I think Internet’s troubles began when the boss got online. At first you knew your boss barely knew how to get online. Wasting the boss’s time was kind of an ongoing joke for years.

In the mid-90s, only one computer at my newspaper was connected. That was the boss’s computer and he only used it when someone from the head office demanded.

He hated the Internet, said it was a waste of time and he didn’t want to hear about it. You could get fired if you got caught using it. We had a newspaper to get out.

When smartphones came along and it became apparent that we were having too much fun at the boss’s expense, the boss’s boss, or the boss’s boss’s boss, thought “Hmm. Those peons aren’t just employees wasting company time. They’re a piggy bank we haven’t cracked yet. Maybe we can make back some of the money we have to pay them?”

Now every time I get online, I get a deluge of people trying to sell me something. Everything that used to be free, they’re telling me, “upgrade to premium! It’s just a few dollars a month!”

Now the Internet is a money-making machine and we’re both the product and the customer… Maybe the Internet is the boss and the company store all rolled into one?