rbistolfi:
I agree. If it weren't for the Internet (and, more specifically, the WWW), many great things wouldn't have happened, or would only have happened in reduced form. I think that Free/Open Source Software generally and GNU/Linux in particular are among the best examples of this phenomenon. Of course Free Software existed before many people had net access, but it wasn't until PC ownership reached a certain critical mass that F/OSS really started to take off. I suppose it's some sort of a feedback loop. Sometimes we focus too much on the negatives (I do that myself), and forget about what's available to us through the Internet that wouldn't be otherwise.
A few examples: I can email friends all over the world, I can phone my friends in Australia for about 1/100 the cost of a regular telephone call, I have access to information (from Wikipedia, Britannica,etc.) which previously would only have been available in a library, I can download software which formerly would have only been available by driving to a computer store ... I could make a very long list. My favorite, though, is being a member (in my own small way) of the Linux community and more specifically the VL community.
Tom