When I imagine what the Net was like before Bartmoss, I see thousands of potential threats. And thousands of opportunities. Course, the whole system was unstable, corpo runners pulling one way, post-war rogue AIs pulling the other; financial markets tanked, virus mutation spiralled in uncontrollable ways, and runners got cooked in their living rooms every now and then. Bartmoss saw the Net as a grenade waiting for the pin to get pulled. And that's exactly what he did.
Fuck it, right? Let the world burn.
Bartmoss fucked the system but fucked all of us right along with it. Just look at it now – corps are on top as usual, the Blackwall (which was supposed to protect us after the net's crash) is just another control tool in NetWatch's arsenal...
Before Bartmoss, the net was an untamed jungle – if you could navigate it, you had a chance to survive. You were free. After Bartmoss, the net's like an airport security check – every step you take NetWatch is checkin your papers and performing a thorough cavity search. Oh, but all for your own good, of course...
