Bill Gates - The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow

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Welcome to The Daily Quote—a podcast designed to kickstart your day in a positive way. I’m your host, Andrew McGivern, and today is October 29th

Now, if you’re listening to this, you’re using the internet. Lucky for you, because today just so happens to be National Internet Day. Yes, that’s right—the one day where we all stop and appreciate the thing that makes it possible for us to laugh at cat memes, Google (or Plex) questionable health symptoms, and argue with strangers in the YouTube comments section. What a gift.

And in honor of this glorious invention, I’ve got a quote that captures the essence of the internet’s power. It’s from the ever-wise Bill Gates, who once said:

"The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow."

Ah, Bill Gates—a man who predicted a world where we could have infinite information at our fingertips, and somehow we still end up using it to figure out which Hogwarts House we belong to.

Bill Gates said this at the beginning of the internet and of course this rings true.

Let’s take a moment to reflect on how much the internet has changed our lives. I mean, remember dial-up? Those were the dark days when just connecting to the web sounded like your computer was attempting to communicate with alien life forms. You’d wait minutes—minutes!—just to load a page. If you’re too young to remember this, let me assure you, it was like trying to watch a YouTube video on a 10-second buffer in 1999. It was both a test of patience and a modern-day form of torture.

And now, here we are, with the power of the internet in the palm of our hands. You can order pizza, stream movies, stalk your... I mean “check in on your friends,” on social platforms. You know, all the essentials. It’s practically magic, and we’ve become so used to it that we panic when the Wi-Fi goes out for more than 30 seconds.

Let’s get back to Bill Gates’ quote, though:

“The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I picture a village, I think of a quiet, peaceful place—people sipping tea, exchanging pleasantries, maybe someone ringing a bell to signal it’s dinnertime. And yet, here we are, in this “global village,” where your "neighbors" are sharing viral dance trends, conspiracy theories, and that one guy on Reddit who insists he knows more about quantum physics than actual scientists. It’s chaotic, but in its own weird way, it’s kind of beautiful.

Gates was spot on when he said the internet would become a town square. These days, everyone has a voice, a platform, and a really strong opinion about important issues - like pineapple on pizza.

I remember being amazed that I could connect with people with the same niche interests that I have from all over the world. It was incredible when geographic distance became irrelevant all of a sudden.

The internet’s power is in its ability to connect people—whether they’re half a world away or just across town. It’s like a giant digital campfire where anyone can join the conversation, although half the time it feels more like a shouting match than a friendly chat.

But for all its noise and nonsense, the internet also holds incredible power to shape ideas, build movements, and bring people together in ways that were unimaginable before. Just think about how quickly information spreads, how entire communities form around shared interests—whether it’s knitting or K-pop—and how one well-placed meme can unite millions in laughter (or confusion).

And I remember the talk about how the internet would wipe out peoples jobs. But look at your job description... you might have a job BECAUSE of the internet. There is a huge list of jobs that didn't exist before the internet was invented and we would never have imagined them...

And now we have the rapid development of AI tools that can actually do things for us. And AI Agents are just around the corner and they will be able to make decision on their own and do more complex multistep tasks.

And of course the fear is that many jobs will just evaporate...

This of course is true... but the question is will there be a huge list of crazy jobs that we can't even imagine yet.

Hopefully...

Remember that 100 years ago 80% of the jobs were in agriculture and food production. Now, less than 2% of jobs are in food production... and yet there are more jobs than ever before.

So today, on National Internet Day, take a moment to appreciate this virtual town square. Sure, it’s a little wild, sometimes exhausting, and full of people who think “LOL” is a valid argument in a debate—but it’s also a place where we learn, grow, and occasionally waste three hours watching videos of otters holding hands.

Remember, as Bill Gates said, the internet is our global village. Let’s just hope we can keep the village from burning down with the latest social media outrage.

And if you haven't jumped down the AI Rabbit hole... what are you waiting for... there is a ton of fun stuff in there and probably, if history repeats itself - a ton of opportunity coming soon.

And if you find yourself Doom Scrolling online... STOP THAT - that's silly. Of course there are bad things happening in the world but why focus on only that... when there are so many great things going on too!

That is why I started the Great News podcast and the Daily Quote show - focus on the positive.

The Great News podcast has been on hiatus but, stay tuned... it will be back soon.

Thanks for joining me today - I’m Andrew McGivern signing off for today, and I’ll be here with you tomorrow with another Daily Quote.