Cybersteampunk… by E.M. Forster
This year is the 100th anniversary of the first story about the Internet going wrong. E.M. Forster (better known for A Passage To India) wrote “The Machine Stops” in 1909, and you can read it online.
In “The Machine Stops,” almost everybody lives underground, and… all of your needs are met by the Machine, which is a kind of master computer that supplies beds, baths, foods, and other comforts and staples — so you never have to leave your little cell. And most significantly for those of us who do most of our socializing via the Internet, everybody uses the Machine to communicate.
