Gopher was great.  I remember telneting through university networks, exploring, and by chance finding fascinating stuff; more than I could ever read.<p>But I think the author misses the real killer feature of the web.  The difference in hypertext models (external vs internal) is mentioned, but glossed over.  Gopher was stuck with hierarchical indexes.  It suffered from all of the limitations of hierarchy and had no way to acknowledge the relations between things.  And documents in Gopher were dead ends.  The web&#x27;s ability to link from anywhere within any document to any other (and even locations within it) is a huge differentiator.<p>That was critical - instead of a limited hierarchy leading you down to a dead-end, you had an unlimited neverending web of related ideas.  Imagine the C2 Wiki or Wikipedia in gopher format - all the same content but with no links.  It wouldn&#x27;t have anywhere near as much value.<p>The simplicity, cleanliness, and order of Gopher has  beauty, but the much messier web has real-world value.  The network effects of linking would naturally cause it to grow exponentially faster.