Cyber Monday was a by-product of terrible early home broadband speeds.

 

Cyber Monday was a by-product of terrible early home broadband speeds.

The term “Cyber Monday” was first coined in the early 2000’s by one Ellen Davis, an e-commerce expert who, amongst other things, analyzed online shopping trends around the holiday season.

It was noted that the Monday after Thanksgiving, millions of American office workers would get online at work and buy everything they’d spent their Thanksgiving weekend gazing at longingly through a storefront window.

But why did they wait until the Monday after Thanksgiving to do it rather than over the weekend at home? Because early home broadband used to suck!

You might think you have it bad now when your internet connection drops from 5g to 4g, but trust me, ya ain’t seen nothin’ ’til you’ve spent five minutes waiting for your two minute Newgrounds video to buffer.

Seriously – continental plates used to drift faster than home broadband buffered.

As is always the case, though, the speed and quality of the internet in peoples’ offices was far superior to the internet they had at home.

So, because of this, people would do all their online shopping at work, quickly flitting between a quarterly report in Excel and a cart loaded with reduced price goodies!