Everyone in this program is thick. If you asked anyone with a basic intelligence and bit of technical ability at the time they would have said dial up is the barrier. It's too slow unreliable and constantly dropping out for Internet shopping to take off yet. Really really obvious stuff in 1997. Furthermore computers were extremely expensive as was an Internet connection. It hadn't taken off yet because it was laborious and not for purpose yet. Once broadband was prevalent the Internet could finally reach its potential and evolved rapidly
@@ICantBeCompletlyCertain Exactly. Same thing with today and AI / LLM. We all know something is bound to happen with them. There are some companies created today (worth penies) that will be worth millions then.
Love the bit about 'Remote Shopping' at Sainsbury's - I work as an Online Shopper at Sainsbury's now, collecting 8 orders of shopping from the shelves at a time, rushing around with a cart all afternoon... The idea caught on.
Yeah 😭 I do it for Asda and it's awful; 10 tote carts full of heavy stuff you have to pull around a huge warehouse are one thing but the pick rate targets are pure stress. I'm at risk of failing my probation because our pick rate target is 224 items an hour and I average between 210 and 220, which isn't close enough I suppose. Even people who have been there years are struggling to hit it these days; during the days of their probation 10+ years ago that target was half. Getting a 60 or so item cart with a load of beer/water/squash insofar that it's still very heavy and difficult to move around and takes ages to pack because you can only move 1/2 multipack(s) at a time will immediately screw you over, if it's busy you're already done for, subbing takes forever and the devices give the most ridiculous substitution suggestions... there's a lot to it, but the higher ups don't care. They just want speed and a big number on paper so people end up with their online shopping packed terribly, with substitutions that make no sense or no subs at all, because their priorities are so backwards. It caught on, yes, and was then ruined by corporate greed and unrealistic higher ups who have never done the job themselves setting stupid targets, just as everything else has been 🤷🏻♀️ Sorry for the small essay, it's a bit of a nightmare haha. I'm especially upset because I actually love the job otherwise; my colleagues are the best and I love jobs that involve a lot of running around and heavy lifting because I'm narcoleptic and liable to fall asleep at desk jobs in ways I don't when I'm up and about all day :\
That's the way Amazon's business model works. They were investing massively into the future, spending cash on distribution centres to meet rising demand
@@wolf-gang And the BBC broadcasted them all again now, those addresses are probably long dead by now but in this day and age the BBC Archive should have blurred those out.
One wet bank holiday in 1998, I queued at the Customer Services desk in my local Homebase for 30 mins to order a shed. It was coming from theur supplier in N.Ireland, but tte clowns at Homebase wanted another £20 to deliver it 3 miles from them to me. Amd Icd have to wait 10 weeks for it. The disnterested staff member scoffed at me when I said I would order one online - the guy in the queue behibd me kaughed at me. I had to email the NI based supplier as they didn't have an online order facility, but I saved £70 and they delivered it for free from Irejand to Nottingham within 2 weeks. No one believed I'd ordered it online at the time.
Hello from Northern Ireland 👋🏻 You have me wondering if the supplier was Smiley's Sectional Buildings. As, if it was, they're only about 2 or 3 miles from me currently.
I used to buy books from Amazon for my university courses at the end of the '90s and into the early 2000s. My parents were terrified of the idea and thought it was an open invitation to hackers to steal what little I had left in my student account. Now, in their 70s, they probably buy more online than I do.
I first bought cd’s online in 2004 as they were out of print so not available in record stores. Had to send a cheque and i got them once it had cleared. Must admit once the album came through the post was exciting popping it into cd player. You still have record shop?
The list of bakery items has reduced quiet substantially making it less interesting to buy online due to There very high postage costs by next day courier the fresh items can be frozen tho to keep fresh. But don't let the high postage put anyone off just make sure you get decent amount to get your moneys worth. There fairy cakes, scones, Sally Lunn and ginger perking as well as the tea is well nice if available in there online shop. Haven't ordered in years last time I looked there was very little fresh single items on sale online shop they seem to be more focused on selling hampers and cakes than normal everyday bakery items shame as they would get more customers but they have their reasons, trying find good old fashioned decent family bakers these days with online shop for delivery is so differculty to find these days if you do then there stuff are stale by time it's delivered and or damaged Bothams like any home bakery all goods are Freshly made that morning delivered straight away other places like fake Greggs stuff isn't always fresh
I was part of the dev team which created some of the early iterations of Sainsbury’s online supermarket. This was before broadband so most home users were stuck with a maximum of 6k per second download (slow response times as well). In order to speed things up the website actually used a “hidden” Java applet which downloaded the shop’s basic catalogue to the user’s browser so that they could quickly search for products from local storage. Obviously, the downside was that the shop was inoperable for a few minutes when they first visited!
Interesting piece and of its time. One of the interviewees complaining about how hard it is to browse for things on the Internet. By 1999 - Google had exploded onto the market and Amazon branched out into providing a full retail experience and the rest as they say is history...
In late 1999 my cable internet provider called me for a survey. Q: Which search engine do you use? A: Google. Q: How do you spell that, it is not on the list.
Was it because Google managed to index the internet much better? Felt like it really expanded the vista of what the Internet could be, rather than having to know the website in advance by word of mouth.
@@johnmartinez7440 Yes that was its killer feature (that plus Pagerank). I remember very well the massive improvement it made compared to AltaVista (at that time the "Google" of its day). Sadly Google has now become a behemoth and I fully suspect it'll be broken up at some point as it's so monopolistic. It's basically the Standard Oil of our time.
Several of my colleagues at work in the 90's had to bring their children's Tamagotchis to work and "look after" them whilst the children were at school 😂
4:14 These shots are quintessentially 90s😆 I remember being a kid and trying to imagine grocery shopping online and it seemed impossible. I imagined something like trying to ship milk in a cardboard box
@@kendrapratt2098 Well I get mine in glass bottles delivered to my door every couple of days.......by a milkman! Althoufgh I do pay my bill via online banking.
"although Amazon has yet to make a profit its rapid growth suggests that in some specialist markets like books internet retailing could yet prove a major force" I wonder if that company did prove to be a major force in the books niche.
the fact is bezos got it right, continued to get it right, then realised before most that the future was in the tech and logistics and not the actual selling, the rest is history.
Grumpy Old Man 1997: "It will never take off, the e-commerce bubble will burst in a few years. I like that personal touch with people facing customer services at my local physical shop ..." Grumpy Old Man 2024: "I've been waiting all day in doors for my scheduled Amazon order that never arrived, like a child put on the naughty step.".
@user-ub1dz8js7s.......'Grumpy Old Man 2024' is actually correct. During the Covid 19 pandemic, most business moved online [particularly FMCG/Retail]. However, studies found that this was largely temporary and although online sales volumes generally increased, 'physical shopping' has recovered considerably post Covid. What has actually since happened is that where customers want to buy 'everyday' products, they will do it online. Conversely, more 'complex' purchases lead customers to choose the traditional store-bought method. There is another very important factor to take into consideration. The dramatic increase in new technologies [and especially] 'digitalisation' of services has greatly reduced the 'human touch' [personalisation] element from the customer experience. Indeed, something like 80-90% of customers DEMAND 'personalised' service and rate it above everything else - including price and the product itself! As you stated in your comment - we are human beings NOT machines and we very much value interacting with other human beings when making our buying decisions. Ray Bradbury's dystopian dream of us all living in our own self-contained little units ordering everything we need via a computer, having it delivered to our door and never having to step outside is probably very unlikely to ever happen. Indeed, I firmly believe we are moving in a completely opposite direction. [eg: Amazon a US$3 Trillion business which is the biggest retailer on the planet and a completely online business, has embarked on opening 50,000 physical stores - selling food items and drinks by promoting the concept of 'never having to queue'. You simply pick the items you want off the shelves and swipe your palm across a sensor as you enter and exit the store!]
In fairness, I imagine a lot of them are still the sort of people to complain about the high-street dying and not enough places taking cash anymore etc etc
@@r4zi3lgintoro65 cable tv internet is mainly an American thing. In the UK the vast majority of the internet still runs on phone lines or dedicated copper. It's only just post-2010 that fibre has started to become a common thing in the UK
@@terrytibbz6820 Some people are stupid though. This man online boasted about ignoring anything taxi drivers say, including the one who told him in the mid 70s to invest in Apple.
Big Fan of this Channel , Love these Clips that the BBC Archive put out!! Even tho it keep's showing my age Lol But it reminds me of so much & how Young & Innocent I Was only 10 or so when this comes out but i remember this year the Summer of 1887 & 1998 Very well And we Had a Windows 95 PC so I Remember the 90's with such Found Memories of this time The Mid to Late 90's & the Millennium & the early 2000's all hold a Very special place in my heart , the Movies & Songs & Games I remember the Christmas Blue Peter in 1997 too & Titanic came out in 1997 & was the first movie i ever seen on my own , been 38 now time really does fly. Love these Clips that the BBC Archive put out!! And even the Older 80's & 70's & all the Way back it was such a different time & in a very Caring way Everyone got on , you left your door unlocked , You got your milk dropped off & the paper & the family was so Much closer .. All around the 1 tv & spending so much more quality time together This Channel @BBCArchive #BBCArchive Really reminds me of that so grateful of this channel & the clips shows news & interviews it post's Thanks BBC!!
You’re probably in the youngest group that remembers life before the internet took over. My kids can’t comprehend that we had four channels and films were a luxury you went out and rented.
When I first connected to the 'real' Internet (in the UK, in late 1992), I had to telephone the Internet Service Provider (Demon Internet) and ask them to send me a paper form to fill in. I completed the form and posted it back to them. They then posted a floppy disk to me, containing some MSDOS Internet utilities. Prior to that I used a 300 baud acoustic modem to connect to a local Bulletin Board System (BBS). Those were the days when computer nerds like me got meet other computer nerds in person at computer clubs and meetups. I met many good friends that way.
I remember IRC being the first remote connection computer software i ever used in 1993 in Europe. It was worldwide groups with virtual chat rooms. Netscape was the first browser i ever opened probably in 1994. I actually applied to a master's degree in a Usa university from that browser in 1996 and because of it i am writting this now from the Usa 27 years later.
I've been buying online since 1999. Initially not much because the choices were fewer and the wait was longer than today. Now I order a computer mouse early in the morning and it's outside my door by 5pm.
Being of a generation when black and white tvs were still a thing to where we are now is just mind-blowing. I’m genuinely fascinated by where we’ll be in the next 30 years. My personal prediction for the next big thing is “universal translators” I.e individuals being able to communicate 1-1 with anyone in any language is not far off and then we really will see a global revolution.
@htershane I think we are almost there. Apparently my earbuds in conjunction with Google Translate can translate in near real time if someone is speaking to me in a foreign language
@@richardhallyburton it’s not far off is it? (He said in regional Polish). And we have AI creeping in now too. It’ll be nuts! But the kids will just adapt and we just have to follow😂
@@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx 😂👍 but of course we all know that would prove the existence/non-existence of God so we’d probably all disapppear in a puff of logic.
I grew up without the internet, it was fine and I don't remember ever being bored. I read a lot, listened to tonnes of music, we even had computer games!
In 1997 I owned a web design company, sold it a year later. However, what keeps amazing me is that now, 2024, there are so many people, even young people who don't do internet shopping, and that there are still so many physical stores.
It's almost as if some people like leaving their house and looking at real things in a real place. Problem with internet shopping is you can never be sure what you get will match the pictures online.
@@TheStarBlack Don’t like it you can return it and get a refund. Try that in a shop in Europe. And I rather go for a walk in the woods than drive to town, pay a kings ransom in parking fees only to be told that they don’t have it but can order it for me.
@@KokkiePiet You can't do a return in a European shop? That's pretty shocking - most retailers here in the US will take anything back in almost any condition, with or without a sales receipt. 😮
I haven't been to a real supermarket in probably years, except for when on vacations for literal fun. All is just delivered. I live like an hermit crab. Thank you, internet!
Although I've been a massive user of the Net since the 90s, I've never had groceries delivered. I live close to a real supermarket and it's far more convenient than doing it online and waiting.
@@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx I tried it 4 times during lockdown. From different supermarkets too. All 4 orders were wrong in some way. Not one correct, and that's before we get to quality complaints!
I don’t believe that internet commerce will ever amount to more than a tiny percentage of brick and mortar commerce. That is why I am investing heavily in shopping malls. Once the fad of the internet fades, I will be in position to benefit tremendously!
Not sure where you live, bht where Iam, the majority of towns and shopping centres are absolutely dead. Doubt it'll ever be what it once was many years ago.
@@mootedtols4865 As if the cost of living isn't high enough; those jobs end up hiring even more teenagers than they already did because they're usually the ones who don't have rent to pay. But they're hugely thankless jobs. Awful and long hours, you're often doing multiple people's jobs at once, customers are abusive and seem to be getting worse (I swear the pandemic destroyed people's ability to be normal; I worked food service both before in 2018 and after in 2023/4 and it was awful both times but especially 2024. People would make me cry on drive thru and laugh about it. It is a nightmare. Incidents of abuse and attacks on UK shop staff went up to about 1300 incidents a day in 2023) and you're lucky if it's "only" the customers, often short staffed, totally underpaid because people think it's super easy work when it's often back breaking, corporate literally don't care about anything but profit and squeezing as much work out of you as possible so you get a lot of pressure/stress, impossible targets (I'm in online shopping; our targets are screwing us all over hard), and a lack of security because they don't want to pay for it, if you're a woman then there are nonstop pervs pushing the limits of how much they can harass you... the list goes on. I'm contracted 18 hours a week but do double because of overtime; they didn't schedule me more days/full time when I signed on but my only day off this week is Wednesday, somehow. These places are ran absolutely awfully and that's just big corporations; I feel so much worse for people in small/independent shops who have to worry about shutting down at any given time and can only hire 1 or 2 people but have to deal with all the same customer and scheduling bs. It's a weird sector to be in for sure, and I'm both interested in and a little hopeful about the future of retail either online or offline, because it's currently unsustainable and can't possibly carry on like this.
How ironic that he speaks of "when the internet was young" in 1997, as if it was no longer. Yet from the POV of 2024, 1997 definitely looks like a time when the internet was still young.
The birth and death? The internet was the birth of the high street? It's a shame nobody knows that car parks are where cars are supposed to stop for high street shopping, or we could all avoid those pesky parking tickets, and perhaps the high street might have stood a chance. Or possibly the high street was there before cars and random shoppers ditching cars in the middle of the street (while convenient for the car driver) was a major pain for everybody in town. Who knows, and who could ever know?
@@dravmtp385 You're being a bit naive. Huge rents /business taxes have killed off much of the high street,there was plenty of parking back in pre internet shopping days,the councils have either banned cars/pedestrianised/low traffic zones and tickets for anything (box junction traps etc etc) The human being is a social animal in need of contact.One day the species will want its High Street back. Everything goes 'round in circles (And I have no idea why anyone would use diliver roo/just eat to get a luke warm burger when you can get it yourself, enjoy it hot and save a few quid on top!)
Yawn. Parking in an average town costs less than a cup of coffee. If you can afford to run a car, you can easily afford a couple of quid to park in town. And business rates - well businesses have to contribute towards their local communities. After all, with no roads, schools, hospitals, police or fire service, there would be very few customers to sell to.
The reporter said "website" as if it was the first time he'd ever said it and wanted to get it right. Also, he helps prove that to look convincingly like you're walking, you need to actually move forward, as staying on the spot makes you look like a bad Michael Jackson tribute.
@@priorityordersdiscarded7868 It is true, you can see in the address bar that the URL is pointed to the C: drive, which is local to the PC, not on the internet. At that time that is how a website would be designed, locally with local addresses, and then uploaded via a rudementary online service like Lycos or Yahoo, or if you were particulary sophisticated, an FTP service.
@@priorityordersdiscarded7868 Look at the address bar. Browser is pointed to a file local to the computer. While it might be possible that this computer is serving those files to the internet, I don't think it would've been wise to use Win9x as a server OS, like, ever :) But most likely they just pre-downloaded files from the web in advance to show on the programme, as not to anger the 'demo gods" and suffer technical problems during filming...
@@xXrhin0saurXx ........FYI, Amazon has embarked on opening 50,000 physical stores - selling food items and drinks by promoting the concept of 'never having to queue'. You simply pick the items you want off the shelves and swipe your palm across a sensor as you enter and exit the store!
My memories of the internet back in 1997 was that most people were still on dial-up connections. Doing anything online a was slow, laborious and joyless experience. Websites were poorly designed and anything other than plain text pages were slow to open and navigate. Purchasing anything obviously required entering bank details and that was quite a scary thing for people to do in 1997. Once reliable broadband got into the homes the landscape began to totally change.
I really enjoy watching these archives from the mid 90s to the mid 2000s. I was a teenager/young adult so have quite vivid memories of this time, yet it looks so old now. And it’s fascinating hearing people’s thoughts and attitudes from the time which, with hindsight, are somewhat ludicrous! 😂
Imagine going into a time machine and you end up back in 1995, you walk up to an old lady and you say "See all these nice shops, festival events and bustling community? Well in about twenty to thirty years time its going to be nothing but boarded up slums, covered in graffiti, surrounded by rubble and homeless people."
i think it’s a cultural thing too. You can even see it playing out with the sainsbury’s persons sceptical tone and Bezos optimism. British in particular say ‘that’ll never work’ where as Californians say ‘how can i make this work’
@@onemorechris, no amount of can-do attitude will change the fact that American companies can easily raise considerably more capital than their European counterparts. Hence why American tech companies were able to flood the market with their products and buy out European competitors, despite their ideas often being just as good.
Its uncanny how the way they talk about the internet here has so many parralels with the way people are talking about large language models and AI in general... Will be fascinating to see what the next 10 years hold as 2007 was surely very different to 1997
Just done my Tesco order then clicked on this lol. Another thing this is 1997 and I remember it looking quite modern, however the part with the woman talking in the supermarket, that refrigeration unit looks like it is from 1976.
@@GhastlyCretin it is indeed. I’ve always thought what is strange, if you go back from 2004 20 years to 1984, massive changes. If you go back from 2024 20 years - 2004 things haven’t changed as much.
Wait... What? Mobile phones can have browsers AND Internet capabilities? Getouttahere! Next you'll be telling us they are mostly large colour screens that are touch activated 🤣
"....something called a web site..."😂 I remember the bbc starting to have its www at the end of programmes in 1998 and that was the moment I thought was missing something. I'm proud of being an early adopter in uk terms. My eBay started 2000 and I ordered from Amazon first in 1999. I remember at Christmas 2001 I ordered something from Amazon the day before Christmas Eve and it arrived the next day. I just felt streets ahead of all those stressed people queuing up. Back in 1999-2004 ish online shopping was mostly so small that it was like Bothams, and you still relied on one person at the other end. Mike Jarman was spot on. Sadly the internet now is an ungoverned cesspool. And it needs some serious lawmaking attached to it.
No one shops on the net. High streets thriving. No issues there. No over consumption. No gamification of shopping. Chinese companies do not have the monopoly...
Funny this showed up today, I just ordered 2 books from Amazon, they'll be here tomorrow, I didn't have to get out of bed either, woke up thinking about getting them in time for book week, and there you go. Who'd have thought back then what would be possible now?! So happy we don't have dial-up speeds anymore, though!!
I'll sometimes take the slowness and peace of making a trip to a classic bookstore (no not Barnes and Nobles which is an entertainment bookstore) over the hassle and hoop jumping, and having to hawk over your online order shipping to make sure it's not misdelivered, stollen, damaged, wrong product or a returned item sold to you as new. Plus i love to smell and feel new books from shelves. Then there is the random chance of seeing other people shopping and making an interesting encounter. All that no internet bandwidth will ever give you back.
A cashless society? I very rarely use cash these days. Like most people I just touch my card to the screen and that's it. But a few months back I went into a major store in my high street and paid with cash and the person serving me had to call over a supervisor who had to tell her what coins to give me. "That's a fifty pence piece, that's a twenty pence piece so two of them" etc I thought that was really weird.
@@Mick_Ts_Chick You've totally missed the point of what I was saying. The person serving me didn't even know what each coin was and needed a supervisor to explain their values. Was it you serving me? 😉
It is amazing how this just looks like "The Day Today". Or rather how the "Day To Day" looked like this, right down to the music, the graphics and the delivery. This out parodies the parody.
Online shopping isn't fundamentally different from ordering from the Littlewoods (or any other) catalogue. All we did was move the catalogue from a laminated magazine to the web
@@PeaveyPV20 and the catalogue was more convenient, since by default (by virtue of being a registered customer) you would have a line of credit, and you settled the balance within 30 days.
Im one of the few that doesn’t shop online unless it’s absolutely necessary. The reasons are simple. 1. I dont like my card or bank details stored all over the internet. The more you do that, the more risk of your details getting into the wrong hands. 2. I like to get out and about, walk round shops, try before I buy if its clothing or shoes, I like to decide what food I will buy at the time in the supermarket, if you order online you miss out on other items you may not have seen. 3. I don’t have an obsession with buying things I don’t need. Far too many people have become addicted to buying all sorts of pointless rubbish they see on various cheap websites or adverts on social media. This constant desire to buy more tat is yet another example of our wasteful society. People want everything but are happy with nothing. Meanwhile all those products need to be manufactured, the raw materials, the energy to produce them, the diesel required for all the ships that carry all that crap half way round the world. Utterly selfish people, only thinking about yourselves. Oh, and lastly, don’t moan about how town centres have become run down because there are hardly any shops. You caused most of this !
Should probably have bought shares in Amazon at this point, though as I was a teenager I was more interested in drink and girls. I don’t regret it tbh.
It cost money to connect back then!🤣 Why connect when you can just look at a local version?👍 Besides the BBC only had one modem and it was being used by First Class at the time.
You can almost hear the quotation marks when the baker says how his daughter used her ..."email address" and that he ended up setting up a ..."website" 😂
Fancy camera technology, upbeat technologically advanced background music, but, thankfully, they still turn to an expert in a lab coat. Albeit, sitting in front of a computer screen.
![Chris Langan - The Interview THEY Didn't Want You To See - CTMU [Full Version; Timestamps]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9miVG2xT5jY/mqdefault.jpg)
These highlight why Brass Eye and The Day Today was so quality, just absolutely stunning comedic representation of these 90s news segments
True
Even a section on cake
THIS IS THE NEWS.
Brass Eye is pretty much a full-blown recreation of this with absurdism thrown in
9:47 I can't believe he didn't even close the door to the internet. That's how viruses get in
Everybody knows the internet is stored in Big Ben.
😂..😇
😅
3:35 That marching on the spot isn't fooling anyone
9:46 #backfromthedead
I thought he did it quite well, actually.
@@johnmartinez7440 *That marching on the spot is fooling one person. 8-)
In real walking, the height of the head above the ground is remarkably steady, not rising and falling with every step.
He’s walking through the Internet Shopping Mall clearly.
I love archive clips like this because they were making a perfectly reasonable prediction at the time but it all sounds absurd in hindsight.
What's absurd? They were right
@@sithius99Yes that’s what he said…
It sounded absurd at the time, not in hindsight, that's the fundamental error in your wording.
Everyone in this program is thick. If you asked anyone with a basic intelligence and bit of technical ability at the time they would have said dial up is the barrier. It's too slow unreliable and constantly dropping out for Internet shopping to take off yet. Really really obvious stuff in 1997. Furthermore computers were extremely expensive as was an Internet connection. It hadn't taken off yet because it was laborious and not for purpose yet. Once broadband was prevalent the Internet could finally reach its potential and evolved rapidly
@@ICantBeCompletlyCertain Exactly. Same thing with today and AI / LLM. We all know something is bound to happen with them. There are some companies created today (worth penies) that will be worth millions then.
Love the bit about 'Remote Shopping' at Sainsbury's - I work as an Online Shopper at Sainsbury's now, collecting 8 orders of shopping from the shelves at a time, rushing around with a cart all afternoon... The idea caught on.
"Cart"? Oh, you meant to say "TROLLEY"...
@primalconvoy No I didn't. I don't use the shopping trolleys that customers use, I have what is effectively an eight-drawered cart.
Does anyone still fax in orders?
@@bromley001 My cart is full of wine and crisps. Do look after it
Yeah 😭 I do it for Asda and it's awful; 10 tote carts full of heavy stuff you have to pull around a huge warehouse are one thing but the pick rate targets are pure stress. I'm at risk of failing my probation because our pick rate target is 224 items an hour and I average between 210 and 220, which isn't close enough I suppose.
Even people who have been there years are struggling to hit it these days; during the days of their probation 10+ years ago that target was half. Getting a 60 or so item cart with a load of beer/water/squash insofar that it's still very heavy and difficult to move around and takes ages to pack because you can only move 1/2 multipack(s) at a time will immediately screw you over, if it's busy you're already done for, subbing takes forever and the devices give the most ridiculous substitution suggestions... there's a lot to it, but the higher ups don't care. They just want speed and a big number on paper so people end up with their online shopping packed terribly, with substitutions that make no sense or no subs at all, because their priorities are so backwards. It caught on, yes, and was then ruined by corporate greed and unrealistic higher ups who have never done the job themselves setting stupid targets, just as everything else has been 🤷🏻♀️
Sorry for the small essay, it's a bit of a nightmare haha. I'm especially upset because I actually love the job otherwise; my colleagues are the best and I love jobs that involve a lot of running around and heavy lifting because I'm narcoleptic and liable to fall asleep at desk jobs in ways I don't when I'm up and about all day :\
"Bothams have set up what's called a website". The dawn of a new civilisation.
They really should have played Sprach Zarathustra in hindsight.
fool. You're must be young and thus a numbrilist. Internet is nothing in the whole scheme of history.
A Web... _site?_
Indeed. Way before global AI censorship ruining the Internet
What kind of shite, you say?
In June 1998 The Internet Bookshop was sold for £9.4M to WHSmith. No Amazon, but a tidy profit for the owners I'm sure.
Good business sense as well. If they hadn't of sold off they almost certainly would have gone bankrupt.
@@edwardspencer-small7021
They might have ended up being enough competition to keep Amazon at bay, as in Australia!
"Although Amazon has yet to make a profit" 😂
They must have made a few quid by now , Right? 😂
That's the way Amazon's business model works. They were investing massively into the future, spending cash on distribution centres to meet rising demand
@@yourname1869 You mean speculating to accumulate? It's hardly peculiar to Amazon, but yep.
@@yourname1869Exactly. It's venture capitalism. Uber is similar
AWS makes a huge profit, they don't really care that much about the online shop part.... just their web services part.
Loving the GDPR breach of blindly broadcasting customer email addresses on TV.
😳 and it has their real names next to some. Welp, hopefully all these people have moved on from using AOL by now.
@@wolf-gang And the BBC broadcasted them all again now, those addresses are probably long dead by now but in this day and age the BBC Archive should have blurred those out.
@@richard-davies Who cares though, these email addresses are probably long since defunct nowadays, they are as old as I am
Yep GDPR definitely existed in 1997 and only applicable when the folk are still around………… go and read your daily mail you bbc bashing muppet
Pre gdpr
Crazy how old programs from as recent as 1997 look now! Good to see Botham’s Bakery website still going strong!
1997 was 27 years ago... not sure I'd call that "recent".
1997 was a lifetime ago
@@type.silverit's not a life time
@@type.silver A very short lifetime.
@@type.silver Not if you lived for 60 years. Memory can feel recent.
I Googled Botham's and was very happy to see they're still going.
No thanks to Brexit. 👎🏻
Very popular in the north
Their domain name was registered before 1996, but the chap said he only found out about the internet in 1997!
@@s559tja the plot thickens
@@justinezafrawhat’s Brexit got to do with Botham’s bakery?
I’ve never seen this episode of Look Around You before.
Class lol not thought of that for years. Thanks for giving me something to revisit tonight 😂
Or The Day Today, I think they used the same graphics tool
I've started to show my school pupils episodes of Look Around You and some of them thought it was real...
@primalconvoy
The first series (school science TV of the 70s) or second series (Tomorrow's World 1980-83 ish)?
@@gunark Thanks, Internet.
Thinternet.
One wet bank holiday in 1998, I queued at the Customer Services desk in my local Homebase for 30 mins to order a shed. It was coming from theur supplier in N.Ireland, but tte clowns at Homebase wanted another £20 to deliver it 3 miles from them to me. Amd Icd have to wait 10 weeks for it. The disnterested staff member scoffed at me when I said I would order one online - the guy in the queue behibd me kaughed at me.
I had to email the NI based supplier as they didn't have an online order facility, but I saved £70 and they delivered it for free from Irejand to Nottingham within 2 weeks. No one believed I'd ordered it online at the time.
Maybe you can order a new keyboard from Northern Ireland aswell
I love a good shed story!
Great story mate. I was born in 1998 but absolutely love watching these 90s archive clips. Crazy how far things have come since 97.
Hello from Northern Ireland 👋🏻
You have me wondering if the supplier was Smiley's Sectional Buildings.
As, if it was, they're only about 2 or 3 miles from me currently.
@@nathanr7671 O font kow wat yoi meen.
I used to buy books from Amazon for my university courses at the end of the '90s and into the early 2000s. My parents were terrified of the idea and thought it was an open invitation to hackers to steal what little I had left in my student account. Now, in their 70s, they probably buy more online than I do.
yeah, but the other way around... theres a bunch of stuff you'd be dubious about that your parents would be like "ahh its ok, take a chance!"
Why is 90s/early 2000s BBC programmes and documentaries just so satisfying to watch
It was 2004 when I started my webshop, still going strong today. The evolution is staggering.
what's your webshop, by any chance? curious to know, thanks in advance.
Yea, what is it ?
What's your site?
I opened my website in 1997 too, I ran a record shop in Cornwall and also sold the vinyl via the net. Good old days.
I bet uploading them took ages! 😅
I first bought cd’s online in 2004 as they were out of print so not available in record stores. Had to send a cheque and i got them once it had cleared. Must admit once the album came through the post was exciting popping it into cd player. You still have record shop?
Hi ven
#2024
I still have #cd collection
No regrets
And you have new #person
Bothams Bakery's website about to get a shed load of traffic!
Haha I've just been eyeing up the Yorkshire Hamper!
Nice to see they're still in business. The stuff they show on their website looks yummy!😊
Crazy ROI play from them to see that we'd all do this in the future LOL
The list of bakery items has reduced quiet substantially making it less interesting to buy online due to There very high postage costs by next day courier the fresh items can be frozen tho to keep fresh. But don't let the high postage put anyone off just make sure you get decent amount to get your moneys worth. There fairy cakes, scones, Sally Lunn and ginger perking as well as the tea is well nice if available in there online shop. Haven't ordered in years last time I looked there was very little fresh single items on sale online shop they seem to be more focused on selling hampers and cakes than normal everyday bakery items shame as they would get more customers but they have their reasons, trying find good old fashioned decent family bakers these days with online shop for delivery is so differculty to find these days if you do then there stuff are stale by time it's delivered and or damaged Bothams like any home bakery all goods are Freshly made that morning delivered straight away other places like fake Greggs stuff isn't always fresh
Yes, before I'd even wathed the entire video I checked to see if they're still around!
Archive clips like this are gold!
I was part of the dev team which created some of the early iterations of Sainsbury’s online supermarket.
This was before broadband so most home users were stuck with a maximum of 6k per second download (slow response times as well).
In order to speed things up the website actually used a “hidden” Java applet which downloaded the shop’s basic catalogue to the user’s browser so that they could quickly search for products from local storage.
Obviously, the downside was that the shop was inoperable for a few minutes when they first visited!
Tesco if I recall took the approach of sending it out as a CD.
I'd dread to think of all the cyber vulnerabilities that existed in code of that era! Generally more honest times though.
sainsbury had os crashing microsft automated tills for many years
This is marvelous! Love the lady phoning in her Sainsbury's order. 😂
And her family would be grown up. Wonder if these are alive still.
@@veggie42- I hope so! They’d be in their 30s now.
Interesting piece and of its time. One of the interviewees complaining about how hard it is to browse for things on the Internet. By 1999 - Google had exploded onto the market and Amazon branched out into providing a full retail experience and the rest as they say is history...
She's not wrong. Dialup internet was painfully slow back then and sites much less sophisticated
In late 1999 my cable internet provider called me for a survey. Q: Which search engine do you use? A: Google. Q: How do you spell that, it is not on the list.
Was it because Google managed to index the internet much better? Felt like it really expanded the vista of what the Internet could be, rather than having to know the website in advance by word of mouth.
Google had a simpler, cleaner interface and wasn’t bogged down with ads and shopping sites taking up all the top results like you had on yahoo.
@@johnmartinez7440 Yes that was its killer feature (that plus Pagerank). I remember very well the massive improvement it made compared to AltaVista (at that time the "Google" of its day). Sadly Google has now become a behemoth and I fully suspect it'll be broken up at some point as it's so monopolistic. It's basically the Standard Oil of our time.
5:02 '...To fax in a shopping list...' - That made me giggle. This video is so 90s that I feel like buying a Tamagotchi.
@delong8998 Yeah they were, in Bolivia.
@@CollapsingRealitiesyou can still buy them brand new in toy shops so they are still selling
In fairness it’s not changed all that much, you just click what you want instead of fax now.
Several of my colleagues at work in the 90's had to bring their children's Tamagotchis to work and "look after" them whilst the children were at school 😂
@@judet5426 Seriously? That's bizarre 😆
4:14 These shots are quintessentially 90s😆 I remember being a kid and trying to imagine grocery shopping online and it seemed impossible. I imagined something like trying to ship milk in a cardboard box
Well that's what milk cartons essentially are!
@@reddwarfer999That’s true, although we always got a gallon in the plastic container
@@kendrapratt2098 Well I get mine in glass bottles delivered to my door every couple of days.......by a milkman! Althoufgh I do pay my bill via online banking.
@@kendrapratt2098 UK we had door step deliveries of milk. crazy how advanced we were before internet shopping
The cameo from Jeff Bezos is honestly chilling
why? lol
@@NYCSubwayWorker he looks almost normal
"although Amazon has yet to make a profit its rapid growth suggests that in some specialist markets like
books internet retailing could yet prove a major force"
I wonder if that company did prove to be a major force in the books niche.
Chilling?
the fact is bezos got it right, continued to get it right, then realised before most that the future was in the tech and logistics and not the actual selling, the rest is history.
What stands out to me is the way they talk properly, clearly and intelligently, how things have changed !
Wonder what happened to that nice American man from the online book store, hope they eventually turned a profit
Grumpy Old Man 1997: "It will never take off, the e-commerce bubble will burst in a few years. I like that personal touch with people facing customer services at my local physical shop ..."
Grumpy Old Man 2024: "I've been waiting all day in doors for my scheduled Amazon order that never arrived, like a child put on the naughty step.".
@user-ub1dz8js7s.......'Grumpy Old Man 2024' is actually correct. During the Covid 19 pandemic, most business moved online [particularly FMCG/Retail]. However, studies found that this was largely temporary and although online sales volumes generally increased, 'physical shopping' has recovered considerably post Covid.
What has actually since happened is that where customers want to buy 'everyday' products, they will do it online. Conversely, more 'complex' purchases lead customers to choose the traditional store-bought method.
There is another very important factor to take into consideration. The dramatic increase in new technologies [and especially] 'digitalisation' of services has greatly reduced the 'human touch' [personalisation] element from the customer experience.
Indeed, something like 80-90% of customers DEMAND 'personalised' service and rate it above everything else - including price and the product itself! As you stated in your comment - we are human beings NOT machines and we very much value interacting with other human beings when making our buying decisions.
Ray Bradbury's dystopian dream of us all living in our own self-contained little units ordering everything we need via a computer, having it delivered to our door and never having to step outside is probably very unlikely to ever happen. Indeed, I firmly believe we are moving in a completely opposite direction.
[eg: Amazon a US$3 Trillion business which is the biggest retailer on the planet and a completely online business, has embarked on opening 50,000 physical stores - selling food items and drinks by promoting the concept of 'never having to queue'. You simply pick the items you want off the shelves and swipe your palm across a sensor as you enter and exit the store!]
well there was bubble 3 years later, but people slowly just were getting more computers and laying broadband (moslty cable tv) infrastructre
In fairness, I imagine a lot of them are still the sort of people to complain about the high-street dying and not enough places taking cash anymore etc etc
@@r4zi3lgintoro65 cable tv internet is mainly an American thing. In the UK the vast majority of the internet still runs on phone lines or dedicated copper. It's only just post-2010 that fibre has started to become a common thing in the UK
@@thesteelrodent1796 im live in Poland and in 2004 only rural places didnt have coax broadband (rest had like 2Mbit ADSL)
If only baby Jeff knew his destiny back then.
To go from selling books to Chinese tat.
Dr Evil and his Space Wang?
I think he had a pretty good idea
He looks like Kevin Spacey back in his younger days
@@MichaelBosley from exploiting us tax law to exploiting Chinese sweat shops
Just checked and Amazon shares were 9 cents in 1997! Wish I had a time machine!
Could say that about almost any large company though, hindsight eh
@@terrytibbz6820 Some people are stupid though. This man online boasted about ignoring anything taxi drivers say, including the one who told him in the mid 70s to invest in Apple.
@@terrytibbz6820 Aye, seems a no brainer now though lol
But you’d probably have sold those shares years ago when it looked like you’d made a goos return.
@@terrytibbz6820 It's not really hindsight. In every era people outsource their thinking to experts who are often wrong.
Big Fan of this Channel , Love these Clips that the BBC Archive put out!!
Even tho it keep's showing my age Lol
But it reminds me of so much & how Young & Innocent I Was only 10 or so when this comes out but i remember this year the Summer of 1887 & 1998 Very well
And we Had a Windows 95 PC so I Remember the 90's with such Found Memories of this time
The Mid to Late 90's & the Millennium & the early 2000's all hold a Very special place in my heart , the Movies & Songs & Games
I remember the Christmas Blue Peter in 1997 too &
Titanic came out in 1997 & was the first movie i ever seen on my own , been 38 now time really does fly.
Love these Clips that the BBC Archive put out!! And even the Older 80's & 70's & all the Way back it was such a different time & in a very Caring way
Everyone got on , you left your door unlocked , You got your milk dropped off & the paper & the family was so Much closer .. All around the 1 tv & spending so much more quality time together
This Channel @BBCArchive #BBCArchive Really reminds me of that so grateful of this channel & the clips shows news & interviews it post's
Thanks BBC!!
You’re probably in the youngest group that remembers life before the internet took over. My kids can’t comprehend that we had four channels and films were a luxury you went out and rented.
This is the most 90s thing I have ever seen…..and I’m here for it!
When I first connected to the 'real' Internet (in the UK, in late 1992), I had to telephone the Internet Service Provider (Demon Internet) and ask them to send me a paper form to fill in. I completed the form and posted it back to them. They then posted a floppy disk to me, containing some MSDOS Internet utilities.
Prior to that I used a 300 baud acoustic modem to connect to a local Bulletin Board System (BBS). Those were the days when computer nerds like me got meet other computer nerds in person at computer clubs and meetups. I met many good friends that way.
I remember IRC being the first remote connection computer software i ever used in 1993 in Europe. It was worldwide groups with virtual chat rooms. Netscape was the first browser i ever opened probably in 1994. I actually applied to a master's degree in a Usa university from that browser in 1996 and because of it i am writting this now from the Usa 27 years later.
The way he said "a website" 😂 2:13. Loved watching this time capsule & seeing how things have evolved since
The term had only recently change to 'web', from Info Superhighway (much less catchy)
That Jeff Bezos didn’t amount to much did he?!
couldn't even keep his hair
He's probably flipping burgers at McDonald's or something.
@@BOZ_11 Or wife
I've been buying online since 1999. Initially not much because the choices were fewer and the wait was longer than today. Now I order a computer mouse early in the morning and it's outside my door by 5pm.
My amazon order history from 2000 shows they were well into games and music by that point on top of books.
The thing is, I remember watching this programme in 1997 and thinking internet shopping would never take off.
This slap-bass permiating the backing track is the most 90s thing about this whole documentary.
Being of a generation when black and white tvs were still a thing to where we are now is just mind-blowing. I’m genuinely fascinated by where we’ll be in the next 30 years. My personal prediction for the next big thing is “universal translators” I.e individuals being able to communicate 1-1 with anyone in any language is not far off and then we really will see a global revolution.
@htershane I think we are almost there. Apparently my earbuds in conjunction with Google Translate can translate in near real time if someone is speaking to me in a foreign language
@@richardhallyburton it’s not far off is it? (He said in regional Polish). And we have AI creeping in now too. It’ll be nuts! But the kids will just adapt and we just have to follow😂
Universal translators are basically already here! Next step is agi and robotics
I've got a babel fish in my ear.
@@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx 😂👍 but of course we all know that would prove the existence/non-existence of God so we’d probably all disapppear in a puff of logic.
2:30 Just casually displaying dozens of peoples email addresses on national TV...
The first recorded case of doxxing lol
How many people had any idea of how to begin using an email address
😂😂
At least we got to see a dumb blonde in there 🤣😂
hahaha
1997 doesn’t seem all that long ago but when you look back now its like living in a different world….probably a better world.
I grew up without the internet, it was fine and I don't remember ever being bored. I read a lot, listened to tonnes of music, we even had computer games!
Tony Blair won election. Starmers won now full circle
@TheStarBlack so did I. My ex had dial up very annoying
I think you´re right!
Strangely erie that this has a feel like those 1950’s-1980’s BBC archive videos. Time flashes past quickly.
2:30 those emails still active!? 😂
In 1997 I owned a web design company, sold it a year later. However, what keeps amazing me is that now, 2024, there are so many people, even young people who don't do internet shopping, and that there are still so many physical stores.
You have to have a credit card, that might be part of it.
@@evamuhlhause
And you point being? Debitcard will do as well.
It's almost as if some people like leaving their house and looking at real things in a real place.
Problem with internet shopping is you can never be sure what you get will match the pictures online.
@@TheStarBlack
Don’t like it you can return it and get a refund. Try that in a shop in Europe.
And I rather go for a walk in the woods than drive to town, pay a kings ransom in parking fees only to be told that they don’t have it but can order it for me.
@@KokkiePiet You can't do a return in a European shop? That's pretty shocking - most retailers here in the US will take anything back in almost any condition, with or without a sales receipt. 😮
I haven't been to a real supermarket in probably years, except for when on vacations for literal fun. All is just delivered. I live like an hermit crab. Thank you, internet!
Although I've been a massive user of the Net since the 90s, I've never had groceries delivered. I live close to a real supermarket and it's far more convenient than doing it online and waiting.
Sounds like a real grim existance pal
@@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx I tried it 4 times during lockdown. From different supermarkets too. All 4 orders were wrong in some way. Not one correct, and that's before we get to quality complaints!
Cant wait to see if it kicks off!
Not only was dial up costly back then, but owning a home PC to run it on was super expensive.
It was, you were talking nearly a grand for a decent pc
@@PeaveyPV20Then you had to add in the dot matrix printer.
@@Avarua59 that takes me back, had them at school
True. My Pentium 1 machine running Windows 95 cost £900.
@@lordprotector3367 That's £1700 adjusted for inflation which is probably right for a high end PC.
I don’t believe that internet commerce will ever amount to more than a tiny percentage of brick and mortar commerce. That is why I am investing heavily in shopping malls. Once the fad of the internet fades, I will be in position to benefit tremendously!
They will need to become.housing in the UK we are running out of space
@@veggie42 not a bad idea. Retail is dead, it's just seasonal crap, seasonal workers and part-time hours.
Not sure where you live, bht where Iam, the majority of towns and shopping centres are absolutely dead. Doubt it'll ever be what it once was many years ago.
@@mootedtols4865 As if the cost of living isn't high enough; those jobs end up hiring even more teenagers than they already did because they're usually the ones who don't have rent to pay. But they're hugely thankless jobs. Awful and long hours, you're often doing multiple people's jobs at once, customers are abusive and seem to be getting worse (I swear the pandemic destroyed people's ability to be normal; I worked food service both before in 2018 and after in 2023/4 and it was awful both times but especially 2024. People would make me cry on drive thru and laugh about it. It is a nightmare. Incidents of abuse and attacks on UK shop staff went up to about 1300 incidents a day in 2023) and you're lucky if it's "only" the customers, often short staffed, totally underpaid because people think it's super easy work when it's often back breaking, corporate literally don't care about anything but profit and squeezing as much work out of you as possible so you get a lot of pressure/stress, impossible targets (I'm in online shopping; our targets are screwing us all over hard), and a lack of security because they don't want to pay for it, if you're a woman then there are nonstop pervs pushing the limits of how much they can harass you... the list goes on.
I'm contracted 18 hours a week but do double because of overtime; they didn't schedule me more days/full time when I signed on but my only day off this week is Wednesday, somehow. These places are ran absolutely awfully and that's just big corporations; I feel so much worse for people in small/independent shops who have to worry about shutting down at any given time and can only hire 1 or 2 people but have to deal with all the same customer and scheduling bs. It's a weird sector to be in for sure, and I'm both interested in and a little hopeful about the future of retail either online or offline, because it's currently unsustainable and can't possibly carry on like this.
How ironic that he speaks of "when the internet was young" in 1997, as if it was no longer. Yet from the POV of 2024, 1997 definitely looks like a time when the internet was still young.
The birth of the death of the high street. Parking fines and high council rates are the nails in the coffin.
The birth and death? The internet was the birth of the high street? It's a shame nobody knows that car parks are where cars are supposed to stop for high street shopping, or we could all avoid those pesky parking tickets, and perhaps the high street might have stood a chance. Or possibly the high street was there before cars and random shoppers ditching cars in the middle of the street (while convenient for the car driver) was a major pain for everybody in town. Who knows, and who could ever know?
@@dravmtp385 You're being a bit naive. Huge rents /business taxes have killed off much of the high street,there was plenty of parking back in pre internet shopping days,the councils have either banned cars/pedestrianised/low traffic zones and tickets for anything (box junction traps etc etc) The human being is a social animal in need of contact.One day the species will want its High Street back. Everything goes 'round in circles (And I have no idea why anyone would use diliver roo/just eat to get a luke warm burger when you can get it yourself, enjoy it hot and save a few quid on top!)
'Council rates' are set by central government, ie , the Tories for the last 14 years, not local councils
Yawn. Parking in an average town costs less than a cup of coffee. If you can afford to run a car, you can easily afford a couple of quid to park in town.
And business rates - well businesses have to contribute towards their local communities. After all, with no roads, schools, hospitals, police or fire service, there would be very few customers to sell to.
@@TheStarBlack So you would happily pay £3 to park at Tesco and do your weekly shop using that logic.
The reporter said "website" as if it was the first time he'd ever said it and wanted to get it right. Also, he helps prove that to look convincingly like you're walking, you need to actually move forward, as staying on the spot makes you look like a bad Michael Jackson tribute.
at 2:18 you can see that the web page is not connected to the internet but it's a file on the desktop lol
Nice spot!
That's not true. That's the website and just what the browser looked like
@@priorityordersdiscarded7868 It is true, you can see in the address bar that the URL is pointed to the C: drive, which is local to the PC, not on the internet. At that time that is how a website would be designed, locally with local addresses, and then uploaded via a rudementary online service like Lycos or Yahoo, or if you were particulary sophisticated, an FTP service.
@@priorityordersdiscarded7868 if you pause and look at the address bar it links to the HDD. I'm amazed that the OP spotted it!
@@priorityordersdiscarded7868 Look at the address bar. Browser is pointed to a file local to the computer.
While it might be possible that this computer is serving those files to the internet, I don't think it would've been wise to use Win9x as a server OS, like, ever :)
But most likely they just pre-downloaded files from the web in advance to show on the programme, as not to anger the 'demo gods" and suffer technical problems during filming...
Look how normal Bezos looks and sounds pre megalomaniac.....
Too much money really is a dangerous thing
He looks like he's literally selling books out of a library.
I remember in those early days he was seen as a bit of a visionary hero and inspiration among techies.
@@NeilStudd Pretty much was at that time, and ONLY books too.
Funny given the advert before this video was an Amazon ad
Amazon, a company selling things on the interweb? Can’t see that being successful 😂
Nah. It's a fad. Bricks and mortar, that's the future. He'll be looking for a job in a couple years mark my words...👀
@@xXrhin0saurXx ........FYI, Amazon has embarked on opening 50,000 physical stores - selling food items and drinks by promoting the concept of 'never having to queue'. You simply pick the items you want off the shelves and swipe your palm across a sensor as you enter and exit the store!
Modern slavery merchants
The river should sue them for stealing its name.
I just checked to see if they still exist, and they do!
My memories of the internet back in 1997 was that most people were still on dial-up connections. Doing anything online a was slow, laborious and joyless experience. Websites were poorly designed and anything other than plain text pages were slow to open and navigate. Purchasing anything obviously required entering bank details and that was quite a scary thing for people to do in 1997.
Once reliable broadband got into the homes the landscape began to totally change.
It was also expensive. I remember having to pay by the hour.
@@Minzalinits was like 4 dollars per hour (in todays money) back then
@@Minzalin i paid by the minute (1 pence per minute), on a dial up modem. 2001 I got BT Openreach broadband, 0.5mbps, wow
You just don't like blinking text on top of background pictures!
@Minzalin I vividly remember my dad telling me not to browse for over an hour, possibly because it became more expensive.
I really enjoy watching these archives from the mid 90s to the mid 2000s. I was a teenager/young adult so have quite vivid memories of this time, yet it looks so old now. And it’s fascinating hearing people’s thoughts and attitudes from the time which, with hindsight, are somewhat ludicrous! 😂
The internet only really took off with mobile phones
Here's hoping that early Amazon worker in a cap took the shares option
Imagine going into a time machine and you end up back in 1995, you walk up to an old lady and you say "See all these nice shops, festival events and bustling community? Well in about twenty to thirty years time its going to be nothing but boarded up slums, covered in graffiti, surrounded by rubble and homeless people."
9:17 If European governments listened to this guy then perhaps the modern internet wouldn't be so dominated by the large American tech giants.
i think it’s a cultural thing too. You can even see it playing out with the sainsbury’s persons sceptical tone and Bezos optimism. British in particular say ‘that’ll never work’ where as Californians say ‘how can i make this work’
@@onemorechris hit the nail on the head I think there mate!
@@onemorechris, no amount of can-do attitude will change the fact that American companies can easily raise considerably more capital than their European counterparts. Hence why American tech companies were able to flood the market with their products and buy out European competitors, despite their ideas often being just as good.
@@bobbobbins4877 these things work together
@@onemorechris, they don't. No amount of positive thinking will make any European market as large as America's.
This clip was prefaced by an advert for Amazon. Irony.
I got a Sainsbury's ad during the section on Sainsbury's - Spooky! (or alarming.....)
@@carolineskipper6976TH-cam picks up on keywords in videos you watch and shows you relevant ads
They could ship cakes from the UK to Japan in 1997, but they've lost the technology now.
“…. Amazon have yet to make a profit….” 😂😂😂😂
Its uncanny how the way they talk about the internet here has so many parralels with the way people are talking about large language models and AI in general... Will be fascinating to see what the next 10 years hold as 2007 was surely very different to 1997
They were talking about AI & neural networks on my Computing degree course back in 1997 - it's been a long time coming!
AI will automate things, make everything more convenient and easy
I love the mysterious music after they mention the word "website"
Just done my Tesco order then clicked on this lol. Another thing this is 1997 and I remember it looking quite modern, however the part with the woman talking in the supermarket, that refrigeration unit looks like it is from 1976.
It could well have been 20 years old at that point.
@@GhastlyCretin never thought of that.
@@swaneknoctic9555 Right? I remember in the late 90s the 70s might as well have been 50 years ago to me. Time is a strange thing.
@@GhastlyCretin it is indeed. I’ve always thought what is strange, if you go back from 2004 20 years to 1984, massive changes. If you go back from 2024 20 years - 2004 things haven’t changed as much.
All that warm, orange lighting as well. Now it's all crisp, white LED's.
Interesting to see this back. Internet shopping really took off when broadband 'always on' internet became available for many people at home.
Mobile phones with browsers and Internet connectivity had a lot to do with the rise; the birth of being able to shop from your pocket.
Wait... What? Mobile phones can have browsers AND Internet capabilities? Getouttahere! Next you'll be telling us they are mostly large colour screens that are touch activated 🤣
Pretty sure it was all happening before smartphones 🤦♂️💀🤣
Smartphones are only truly mass market for about 15years now
I'd been using the internet for 15 years before I got a smart phone.
"....something called a web site..."😂 I remember the bbc starting to have its www at the end of programmes in 1998 and that was the moment I thought was missing something.
I'm proud of being an early adopter in uk terms. My eBay started 2000 and I ordered from Amazon first in 1999. I remember at Christmas 2001 I ordered something from Amazon the day before Christmas Eve and it arrived the next day. I just felt streets ahead of all those stressed people queuing up.
Back in 1999-2004 ish online shopping was mostly so small that it was like Bothams, and you still relied on one person at the other end. Mike Jarman was spot on.
Sadly the internet now is an ungoverned cesspool. And it needs some serious lawmaking attached to it.
No one shops on the net. High streets thriving. No issues there. No over consumption. No gamification of shopping. Chinese companies do not have the monopoly...
"He set up this thing that's called a website". Nah, it'll never catch on. 🤣🤣
Not only will it take off, it will kill the highstreets
Convenience kills. RIP the high streets 💔💀
Funny this showed up today, I just ordered 2 books from Amazon, they'll be here tomorrow, I didn't have to get out of bed either, woke up thinking about getting them in time for book week, and there you go. Who'd have thought back then what would be possible now?! So happy we don't have dial-up speeds anymore, though!!
I'll sometimes take the slowness and peace of making a trip to a classic bookstore (no not Barnes and Nobles which is an entertainment bookstore) over the hassle and hoop jumping, and having to hawk over your online order shipping to make sure it's not misdelivered, stollen, damaged, wrong product or a returned item sold to you as new. Plus i love to smell and feel new books from shelves. Then there is the random chance of seeing other people shopping and making an interesting encounter. All that no internet bandwidth will ever give you back.
I think the real shock is how RP the presenters are!
The business programmes on the TV were the last vestige of the old guard
@@broccoliface4501 I like it - it's like seeing a cottage with a thatched roof.
@@curiousuranus810 Me too, especially with the calibre of some modern presenters' oratory skills. Its aspirational imo.
Real & Proper English.
its great to see the evolution and growth of a technology as a 37yr old.
A cashless society? I very rarely use cash these days. Like most people I just touch my card to the screen and that's it. But a few months back I went into a major store in my high street and paid with cash and the person serving me had to call over a supervisor who had to tell her what coins to give me. "That's a fifty pence piece, that's a twenty pence piece so two of them" etc I thought that was really weird.
@@Mick_Ts_Chick Hope you're having a really lovely day but try reading my original post again
That's quite frightening
@@Mick_Ts_Chick You've totally missed the point of what I was saying. The person serving me didn't even know what each coin was and needed a supervisor to explain their values. Was it you serving me? 😉
Honestly, its frightening kids these days are brain-dead. I'm 29 the generations before me and my generation were the last when kids were kids.
dont even need card use phone
It is amazing how this just looks like "The Day Today". Or rather how the "Day To Day" looked like this, right down to the music, the graphics and the delivery. This out parodies the parody.
What Brasseye episode is this?
They used the same graphics as Thr Day Today'' for the globe with currencies spinning round it. They're using the same editing sweet no doubt.
This is just unbelievable how it inadvertently highlights brass eye, it definitely is the same editing and narrative style
Back then in '97... it was quicker to go to the shop/library than to put your computer on 😅
Not forgetting not finding a website that didn't crash or close down the browser.
These are the same sentiments shown against AI at the moment!
Thats actually a ridiculously good point
Almost exactly! Wow.
Thanks Nils - Thnils
'Course it won't. I do all my shopping at Gateway, John Menzies and C&A.
No I'll stick with BHS and Woolworths thank you very much!
Many of those shops vanished and got replaced. Aldi,Lidl.and Primark etc grew. The pound shops.
Hope it works out for you ;p
Hearing the prospect of "e-commerce" being treated with pessimism and doubt is so crazy in 2024.
Online shopping isn't fundamentally different from ordering from the Littlewoods (or any other) catalogue. All we did was move the catalogue from a laminated magazine to the web
To be honest back then things looked better in a argos catlogue etc than online due to shite graphics, internet speeds etc
@@PeaveyPV20 and the catalogue was more convenient, since by default (by virtue of being a registered customer) you would have a line of credit, and you settled the balance within 30 days.
@@BOZ_11 yeah sure i had a argos card and i still prefer argos now to amazon, amazon has too much tat
Im one of the few that doesn’t shop online unless it’s absolutely necessary. The reasons are simple. 1. I dont like my card or bank details stored all over the internet. The more you do that, the more risk of your details getting into the wrong hands. 2. I like to get out and about, walk round shops, try before I buy if its clothing or shoes, I like to decide what food I will buy at the time in the supermarket, if you order online you miss out on other items you may not have seen. 3. I don’t have an obsession with buying things I don’t need. Far too many people have become addicted to buying all sorts of pointless rubbish they see on various cheap websites or adverts on social media. This constant desire to buy more tat is yet another example of our wasteful society. People want everything but are happy with nothing. Meanwhile all those products need to be manufactured, the raw materials, the energy to produce them, the diesel required for all the ships that carry all that crap half way round the world. Utterly selfish people, only thinking about yourselves. Oh, and lastly, don’t moan about how town centres have become run down because there are hardly any shops. You caused most of this !
Should probably have bought shares in Amazon at this point, though as I was a teenager I was more interested in drink and girls. I don’t regret it tbh.
Companies such as Tesco, as well would have proved an incredible investment! At this time you still had to buy shares over the phone!
Love how they were viewing his website off the C drive.
It cost money to connect back then!🤣
Why connect when you can just look at a local version?👍
Besides the BBC only had one modem and it was being used by First Class at the time.
Haha, very fair point
You can almost hear the quotation marks when the baker says how his daughter used her ..."email address" and that he ended up setting up a ..."website" 😂
They need to do a follow-up report with the original reporters, it's fascinating.
Fancy camera technology, upbeat technologically advanced background music, but, thankfully, they still turn to an expert in a lab coat.
Albeit, sitting in front of a computer screen.
You'll be pleased to know, Bothams are still going!
0:15 Oh you fools you dont know whats coming to you
*didn't
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Literally looks like _The Day Today_
They ise the same graphics like the spinning globe with currencies
Its the same presentation style and even editing, the interviews are the same tone and weirdness, the camera cuts and dodgy backgrounds, it's uncanny
"What's called a 'website' "... hilarious
Which genius ever thought calling a company IBS was a good idea?
That's some marvel-level effects right there
If only they knew just how big it would become
Mobile phones play a big part in this. Who could have forecast by 2024, hardly any households would have a fixed line.
The idea of stepping into a monitor is very fascinating
A 'website'? Can you access that on your phone?
Phones soon could
@@veggie42no, everything is now an app
I am a very early Amazon shopper (Books and CD's only). I sometimes get small perks that are very unique. I don't seek them out. It just happens.