What was the most significant piece of Internet technology that was built between 2001 and 2010? It’s a tough question; something we might not know the answer to. I think it’s Wikipedia.

The web is predictable in a lot of ways. Things that allow people to be more social grow naturally. As soon as its invented, it’s obvious the endgame is everyone will eventually have one. It doesn’t add too much to the bottom-line of humanity, but we can communicate faster and better. Think the telephone and Facebook. They are significant, but not incredibly interesting.

But for every decade, there’s an almost underdog. An unexpected success. Something where its utility is not immediately able to be grasped. For how much people wrote of Facebook in the early days as a trite pokefest, Wikipedia was totally barred from being used as research in universities. What silliness. Today, Wikipedia represents the world’s collective knowledge, orders of magnitude better than any encyclopedia. It’s what humanity knows to date.

What will define the teens of this century? The more you look around, the more you feel that Kickstarter is really it. Kickstarter is able to harness a very important force in the universe, the “I would pay money for that” force. It measures it with uncanny accuracy. Almost better than any company could. Kickstarter is still in its infancy. Not that many people know about Kickstarter yet (ask your parents).

It’ll be cool to see where Kickstarter is in 2020. It’ll be even cooler to see where we are then.