Everything Everywhere Daily · Friday, October 2, 2026
Robert Metcalfe, co-inventor of Ethernet and founder of 3Com, predicted in the mid-1990s that the internet would 'spectacularly supernova' and 'catastrophically collapse' in 1996 due to its exponential growth. This prediction famously proved incorrect.
“Almost all of the many predictions now being made about 1996 hinge on the Internet's continuing exponential growth.”
“But I predict the Internet, which only just recently got this section here on InfoWorld, will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.”