Eating His Words: Robert Metcalfe and the Great Internet Collapse That Wasn’t

In the mid-1990s, the digital frontier felt more like a fragile experiment than a global utility. The internet was slow, cumbersome, and riddled with technical “growing pains.”¹ While many were optimistic, some of the most brilliant minds in technology were convinced the system was a house of cards. Chief among the skeptics was Robert Metcalfe, the legendary inventor of Ethernet and a titan of networking history.

The Prediction of a Digital Apocalypse

In 1995, Metcalfe made a daring and public forecast. He argued that the internet, facing an unprecedented surge in users and traffic, lacked the infrastructure to survive its own success. He predicted a “catastrophic collapse” would occur in 1996.² To Metcalfe, the web was a “supernova” destined to burn out under the sheer weight of its own growth. To prove his conviction, he famously promised that if the internet were still standing by the end of the year, he would literally eat his words.

Survival and Success

The year 1996 came and went. Instead of a collapse, the world witnessed an explosion of innovation. Infrastructure improved, bandwidth expanded, and the internet became more resilient than even its creators had imagined. The collapse never happened.

A Lesson in Accountability

Metcalfe, true to his word, did not hide from his error. At the 1997 World Wide Web Conference, he stood before an audience of his peers, took the printed page of his original column, and placed it in a blender with a bit of liquid.³ He then drank the paper pulp in front of the crowd.

It remains one of the most iconic acts of public accountability in tech history. Metcalfe’s “meal” serves as a timeless reminder that even the geniuses who build our future can underestimate the power of human ingenuity. Sometimes, when the world proves you wrong, the only thing left to do is swallow your pride—and your prose.