I think the answer to the article is simple: inertia.
It took the internet - one of the most useful thing ever invented in the whole
history of mankind - 20 years to go from being functional to being used by a
sizable fraction of humanity.
True, see this 1995 article about internet for example:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1995/02/26/the-internet-bah.htmlIt looks ridiculous now but back then people were seriously thinking that internet would fail for technical reasons.