"The downside of the new ease with which citations can be found, Ms. McKean said, is that words sometimes enter the dictionary too quickly. 'We occasionally take words out,' she said. 'We thought they were working, and they just ended up not.' She cited the term 'information superhighway,' which was removed from the new edition of the O.A.D.[Oxford American Dictionary], explaining, 'People aren't using it as much, and if they are, they're using it in a jokey way.'"Issue: why do metaphors fade; why did "information superhighway" die? IMO the term has too many syllables, "net" and "web" are shorter terms. Ease of use is always vital. It was also used in the context of a vast construction project. That may have been true back in 1999, when every roadside in Reston was being cabled with fiber, but no longer. Finally "superhighway" is also, at least to an aging driver who never enjoyed the interstates, a slightly intimidating term, while that's not my experience of the web.
The web is no longer strange and frightening. We don't worry these days so much about people developing anti-social tendencies on the web; we see too many blogs trying for the biggest audience possible.
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