https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vbb994/how-the-cd-rom-killed-the-physical-encyclopedia

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

The CD-ROM was sold to the public and the world as a way to bring interactive multimedia experiences into our homes. (Certainly, that's how the magazine world tried to sell it.)