This article, in the form of a personal letter to the departed Ursula, begins with observations on the modern world of communications dominated by digital interactions. It corroborates Franklin’s slice and dice metaphor, pointing out how the internet has changed the way individuals interact and the far-reaching social impacts of that change. It then proceeds with a quick look-back at the early world of internet activism in Canada — a world of excitement and possibilities never realized. The main body of the article moves to the present and the deadly effects, in the early months, of the COVID-19 pandemic on residents in long term care homes, particularly in the for-profit sector in Ontario. As an example of the dangers of prescriptive technologies presented in Franklin’s Massey Lectures, it outlines how the industrial process which optimizes efficiency should never be used to deliver care for the elderly. The article concludes with some short musings about the author’s current involvement in a multi-stakeholder decision-making process on internet policy, in which she draws on Franklin’s “earthworm theory of social change”.