The past two centuries of electronic media evolution provide a rich historical laboratory for understanding contemporary patterns of socio-technological change. From the advent of telegraph in the nineteenth century, through the successive emergence of radio, broadcast television, and digital platforms, to the current proliferation of generative artificial intelligence, each new technology has precipitated profound transformations in the production, distribution, and consumption of information. These successive waves of innovation have recurrently disrupted established business models, reconfigured audience behaviors and expectations, altered power relations between content producers and consumers, and transformed the ways we socialize. By examining these historical patterns, we aim to lay the foundations for better understanding of the present-day shifts in the logic of digital platforms and their implications for individuals, communities and societies around the world.