The Internet: From Novelty to Necessity (and What It Means for Search)
Every major technology passes through a predictable journey before becoming an invisible part of daily life. The internet is no exception. It has moved through what we call The Technology Maturity Cycle©, and the consequences for traditional search are now starting to show.
Introduction (Pre-1995)
The internet was an experiment confined to universities, research labs, and defense projects. There was no “search.”
Fad (1995–2000)
The web exploded with the dot-com boom. Search engines emerged to make sense of the chaos. Companies rushed online with little strategy.
Toy (2000–2010)
Viral websites and early social media made the internet more about entertainment than serious business. Search matured with Google’s rise.
Adoption (2010–2015)
Businesses began systematically using the internet for marketing, customer service, collaboration, and e-commerce.
Dependence (2015–2020)
The internet became critical to operations. A strong digital presence and customer experience were no longer optional.
Utility (2020–Present)
The internet became invisible infrastructure, expected to work like electricity. Customers rarely notice it unless it fails.
© 2025 Foonster LLC. The Technology Maturity Cycle is a copywrighted property of Foonster LLC. All rights reserved.
“We don’t ask, ‘Do you have internet?’ We expect it to be there, always on, always working, and barely noticed unless it fails.”
At Foonster, many of us remember working at Prodigy in the early 1990s, where we often speculated about a future of ubiquitous internet connectivity. It felt like a distant fantasy. Today, that vision is reality. But the shift we are watching now is even more dramatic: the slow erosion of traditional search as the default customer journey.
As AI begins its own journey along this same maturity curve, it brings a new layer of uncertainty. AI introduces complex human trust issues, bias risks, and unpredictable recommendation behaviors. And yet entire industries are racing to adopt it and build it into their customer experience stack.
And yes, we’ll say it plainly: no one knows exactly what is going to happen. What we do know is that those who recognize the pattern—and act early to adapt their brand and data for the AI-driven world—will be the ones who win in the next era of discovery and customer engagement.