Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology. Back in the '90s -- before many of you were born -- the internet was much better than it is today. I'm only halfway kidding, too. Let me explain. At the time, we were sure anything was possible. We were also pretty stupid. We launched sites that just sold socks. Others sold balls. Social networking was just something we did -- we didn't need a site or a name for it. We were happy to go out at ni
