ference, which had been started in 1984, was a yearly
Californian meeting of digital pioneers and enthusiasts. The hackers
of the Hackers Conference had little if anything to do with the hackers
of the digital underground. On the contrary, the hackers of this
conference were mostly well-to-do Californian high-tech CEOs,
consultants, journalists and entrepreneurs. (This group of hackers
were the exact sort of "hackers" most likely to react with militant
fury at any criminal degradation of the term "hacker.")

Barlow, though he was not arrested or accused of a crime, and though
his computer had certainly not gone out the door, was very troubled by
this anomaly. He carried the word to the Well.

Like the Hackers Conference, "the Well" was an emanation of the Point
Foundation. Point Foundation, the inspiration of a wealthy Californian
60s radical named Stewart Brand, was to be a major launch-pad of the
civil libertarian effort.

Point Foundation's cultural efforts, like those of their fellow Bay
Area Californians the Grateful Dead, were multifaceted and
multitudinous. Rigid ideological consistency had never been a strong
suit of the Whole Earth Catalog. This Point publication had enjoyed a
strong vogue during the late 60s and early 70s, when it offered
hundreds of practical (and not so practical) tips on communitarian
living, environmentalism, and getting back-to-the-land. The Whole
Earth Catalog, and its sequels, sold two and half million copies and
won a National Book Award.

With the slow collapse of American radical dissent, the Whole Earth
Catalog had slipped to a more modest corner of the cultural radar; but
in its magazine incarnation, CoEvolution Quarterly, the Point
Foundation continued to offer a magpie potpourri of "access to tools
and ideas."

CoEvolution Quarterly, which started in 1974, was never a widely
popular magazine. Despite periodic outbreaks of millenarian fervor,
CoEvolution Quarterly failed to revolutionize Western civilization and
replace leaden centuries of history with bright new Californian
paradigms. Instead, this propaganda arm of Point Foundation cakewalked
a fine line between impressive brilliance and New Age flakiness.
CoEvolution Quarterly carried no advertising, cost a lot, and came out
on cheap newsprint with modest black-and-white graphics. It was poorly
distributed, and spread mostly by subscription and word of mouth.

It could not seem to grow beyond 30,000 subscriber