What happens when a data breach does nothing wrong.

In the early 2000s, the internet still lived inside portals and passwords. Then a quiet breach revealed how easily anonymous data could become personal. No laws were broken. No systems collapsed. But something shifted.

People did not panic.
They simply stopped showing up.

Episode 3 explores the moment trust recoiled, participation slowed, and the future of the internet quietly lost momentum.

On September 11, 2001, the world watched in real time.
The internet did not.

Episode 2 of Life in Rewind explores an alternate history where the web remained moderated, restrained, and slow — even as events demanded immediacy.

As television and radio fill the silence, online spaces close ranks. Updates wait for verification. Conversation pauses. Trust begins to shift.

Through David, Sarah, and Lisa, this episode asks what happens when accuracy arrives too late to feel present.

The internet didn’t fail.
It waited.

Next episode: The breach.

Before the internet became the place where everything happened, it almost wasn’t.

In the first episode of Life in Rewind, we imagine an alternate history where the web’s early promise stalls—not because of a single failure, but because trust never fully forms.

Small decisions, early scandals, and cautious institutions slow adoption. Online spaces remain fragmented, moderated, and peripheral to everyday life. Connection exists, but it never quite replaces television, newspapers, or the physical world.

Through the experiences of David, Sarah, and Lisa, Episode 1 sets the foundation for a world where the internet lingers on the edge of society—useful, present, but never dominant.

This is the world before everything moved online.