Back in my PhD days, I worked with technology invented by Gelernter, a brilliant guy (with whose politics and social stances I vehemently disagree but that is immaterial). It's interesting to see how people were thinking 25+ years ago. "The desktop is dead" was a statement made because of scale. Google and others solved it via search and we are now all paying a certain price in terms of privacy.
https://www.wired.com/1997/02/lifestreams/