Before the Web There Was Gopher
Philip L. Frana · IEEE Annals of the History of Computing · 2004
The World Wide Web, universally well known today, was preceded by an efficient software tool that was fondly named Gopher. The Internet Gopher, much like the Web, enabled users to obtain information quickly and easily. Why, then, did it disappear but the Web did not? Gopher faded into obscurity for two main reasons: hypertext and commerce.