I remember the day I saw my first website (or webpage) as clear as day.

It 1997 and I was working for a small non-profit when a volunteer came in and started showing me the internet (as it was back then).

We dialed up through a phone line, waited a long time, typed in an address, and poof, there it was!

He had built a simple webpage for the non-profit organization claiming that it was the future. “Someday” he said, “everyone will have a web page, it will be like an online phonebook”.

I still chuckle at his description of the internet as an online phonebook, but in those early days that was about all it was. Because of slow connections, slow processors, and slow graphics, the most you could do was put up some text and maybe a few small graphics. No video, no audio, no podcasts, no flash.

My world changed that day. I began to think about how amazing it would be if everyone in the world got on the internet, and was able to somehow put all their knowledge out there for everyone else in the world to access. How amazing!

Of course it was also a fantasy at that time. But without knowing it on some level I had some idea of what was coming.

I was so taken by the internet that I went out and bought a huge book and taught myself to write HTML, the language of the internet. I wanted to learn how to make websites, I wanted to be a part of this coming wave of change.

After moving on to another job with more support and resources, I built and published my first website in 1998. It was wonderful! Simple, useful. I put as much content in there as possible, and it was met with fairly positive reviews from folks who interacted with our business.

From then on I was hooked. Technology was advancing rapidly, processors were getting faster, higher speed internet access was popping up in more places, and it seemed like people were starting to get more and more interested in the internet as more than just a curiosity.

Then, sometime in 1998, I stubbled across a website that had images of scantily clad women. I had found a very early form of a porn site.

Again, it was difficult to host high quality images, pages were slow to load and frustrating to view, but still, it was a beginning.

When I first saw this, it seemed like Playboy, but online, and without the wonderful articles. As usual my mind went racing ahead and I could certainly envision a future where this kind of material was easy to view, it was just a matter of technology moving ahead a little more.

And the thought popped into my head, people are going to start putting pornographic material on the internet, and there will certainly be incredible demand for it. Most importantly, I believed that the first people into the space would make a killing. It would be a fairly easy matter to get a site up and running, grow it, then sell it to someone for a small fortune.

These thoughts kept me awake at night. I could see the path to riches, the path to early retirement sitting right in front of me. I had the skills. I had the time. It seemed as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

I made up my mind to go for it. I would get a domain name, hire some models and a photographer, and I’d be off to a world of fast cars and fancy vacations.

But then I had a very different thought. The thought was more of a vision. A vision of me sitting on my pulling up to my grandparents house in my fancy sports car, going in and sitting on their couch for a visit, and then trying to explain to them the source of my wealth.

That vision made me ill. I wouldn’t want to tell my grandparents how I made my money. I realized that I probably wouldn’t want to tell anyone how I made my money.

My dreams of being a pornmaster ended abruptly that day. Twenty plus years later I sometimes wonder what might have been, but I have never regretted my choice.

Oddly enough my feelings about not becoming a pormnaster are less about the material and more about the main problem that still pervades the internet today, anonymity.

I would have been ok being a pornmaster, but only because I could do it in secret. I could hide my identity behind a corporation, no one at the grocery store would know they were standing next to a guy who got rich putting racy pics on the internet.

The really disturbing part was believing it was ok for me because it was anonymous. The fact that I didn’t want to do it out in the open was not ok with me.

The internet has evolved into a place where being anonymous empowers people to do all sorts of crazy, stupid, immoral, and dangerous things. Most people would never swear at someone or pick a fight with them in person, but online some people become angry, hateful monsters.

Bullying, threatening, degrading, humiliating, hating. You name it and people who feel emboldened by their anonymity on the internet are willing to let loose.

Maybe I’m lucky I learned my lesson about anonymity long ago. It’s certainly guided me and my journey on the internet. I’ve always stuck to a policy of not doing, saying, or posting anything online that I would be ok with if people knew my real name. I always use my real accounts, and I try to be as transparent as possible.

Of course I don’t have any reason to post hateful, angry or hurtful things, but there are other ways to cause harm, and the temptation to do something knowing you are anonymous can be tempting, especially if you are lashing out or seeking revenge.

I’ve been in, on and around the internet since its earliest days, and it’s certainly been fascinating to watch the evolution. It has brought out the best in some people, and the worst in others.

I’m grateful I did not allow it to bring out the worst in me.