Could the Internet be dying? Internet RIP? Interesting read.

Could the Internet be dying? Is it really the case that what is probably the greatest engine of prosperity we have seen since the advent of steam power is under serious threat? With the explosive growth of the Web and numbers of people on-line that we are seeing today, the idea seems ludicrous, but an increasing number of experts are worried.

The creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, writes in Scientific American this month that the founding principles of the Web are under threat from the ‘closed silos’ of Facebook, mobile-phone apps, iTunes and other self-contained commercial sites. And many people, including Dr Berners-Lee, are worried about the growing threat to ‘Net Neutrality’. Finally there is cyberterrorism and, probably worse, the measures that may be put in place to defend against it.

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Fewer and fewer people – particularly people under 25 – access the Net these days from a static terminal plugged into a cable. Increasingly, surfing the Net means surfing it on the move. What this – may – mean is that in a few years the Web as we know it will start to fragment. The growth of the apps, plus the success of sites such as Facebook, may cause the Global Village of the Internet to start to devolve into a series of semi-connected islands of content.
The threat to Net neutrality is different but will have similar results, exacerbating the fragmentation of the Web. Net Neutrality is one of the founding, keystone principles of the Internet. Based in essence on the protocols that governed the first ‘Internet’ - the telegraph systems created in the 19th Century – the principle of Net Neutrality states that Internet service providers should not provide their customers privileged access to certain websites depending upon the deals struck between them and the owners of those websites. In other words, while different ISPs are free to charge me different prices for Internet access, and different prices depending on speed of access, once I am on-line, which ISP I have chosen should make no difference to how fast I can access a third-party’s site.











http://hanlonblog.dailymail.co.uk/

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I remember first hearing this when HTML became common and people were using browsers rather than telnet. From where I sit and have been involved with the Internet since the mid 90s, we're just scratching its potentials.

he invented the web. different animal.

maybe the web is dying. doubt it. the internet is not the web.

Until a better way to distribute porn comes along the internet is safe.

a way to deliver goods and services, period.

The threat to "Net Neutrality" as I see it is that present Internet Service Providers - your AT&T's, your RoadRunners, etc... will set up a parallel Intranet, initially serving up some of the same Internet sites but at a more reliable and faster speed. If Net Neutrality laws are put into place, then the marketing of it will be simple - you will have a "neutral" Internet and then "for free" we will throw in access to the faster " Network"

Look at the "Internet" in China. It's not really an Internet, but more of a country-wide Intranet. It's controlled there for political ends... access a certain site and it'll be timed out, or you get served a local alternative. Here in the Capitalist West, our Internet will evolve into an Intranet, served up for us by the Intranet provider.

However in both scenarios, the "Chinese Internet" and the global Internet operate on open global standards that are widely understood. The basic phone service - from the phone cabinet/exchange to the other destinations phone cabinet/exchange is routed through an Internet-like network anyway (and a lot of phone calls go over the regular Internet anyway - even if on both ends the equipment are "rotary phones". Those in China who want to visit this forbidden content can - via a virtual private network connected outside the country, or less securely by proxy, or by using technologies like Tor. Of course, Tor and most proxies are banned, private networks can still be snooped upon and are generally for use of non-nationals, or for people working for non-national companies for the intent of accessing those companies' intranets. We may end up being China-fied as far as our "Internet" goes... but like the present physical Great Wall of China has holes in it, so does the Great Firewall of China... the Great Firewall of America (yes it exists, but it's more like a Great Big Spongewall of America), the Great Firewall of Australia (definitely does exist)... and any other major country you want to mention.

I actually liken Facebook today to the AOL of the 1990s. I expect Google to hang around longer and be more relevant than Yahoo! is today simply because Google appears to me to have made better long term decisions about its acquisitions and what it does than what Yahoo! did. Yahoo! tried to become that one-stop shop. Google is primarily fixated on search, and most deviations of its core business - web search - have been around that. Google however has got big into communicating, and openly at that. I also believe Google foresaw that the Internet is going ever more mobile and though Microsoft was worried that Google would design and dish up a Google OS for desktop and laptop computers (a Google Linux offshoot has been made, but is not for public distribution), Google saw the mobile phone as the future - hence we now have Android (based on Linux ...) as an open, major mobile phone operating system competing with RIM, Apple, Microsoft, Nokia and others.

In any political climate - favourable or otherwise - information will and always find a means out. Whether it's in Cuba blogging by USB key, shipping CDs in other parts of the world... information can and will be disseminated.

When you're lucky to get 2 or 3 hours of intermittent electricity a day, if you even can afford that much. Besides, who is going to waste time surfing the Internet when there's fire wood to be split and water buckets to carry home from the community water pump.

Fossil fuel powered technological civilization will end up being just a brief blip on the radar screen of history. The Internet will be an ever briefer blip within a blip.

Use it while you've got it to collect real-world survival skills.

His usual comic is so basic you forget he can do awesome stuff like this.


Or like http://xkcd.com/681">this one

http://xkcd.com/779/


Thanks for posting.

Is it just me or does The Isle of 4chan look like a dick with balls? :rofl:

wrote a very interesting and insightful book called Understanding Media that was the birth of the phrase, "The medium is the message." One of the ideas that derived from this book and further writings by McLuhan was that in 20 or 30 years books and magazines would be a thing of the past. I'm happy to say that books and magazines are still around. And so will the Internet.

The approaching shortage of IPv4 addresses may be entertaining. The standard form of IP addresses may be running short in a year or two. The IPv6 protocol promises a nearly unlimited number of addresses but hasn't seen the level of adoption necessary to prevent a roadblock.

Trying to be the complete online experience to its members and even making it difficult to access the broader Internet? That's how I vaguely remember it but I wasn't a member.

Method of access has no bearing on content. The Internet is currently more robust than ever. You want to talk about "semi-connected islands of content" then go back to the mid-1980s when a lot of general public accessed the Internet via America Online (i.e., AOL). The trend has only been more variety, more openness, more content, faster and cheaper access, and greater accessibility to the public at large.

There is ZERO evidence to the contrary.

When CDs were invented, it was the death of radio.

When cable/sat were invented, it was the death of "free" TV.

When DVDs were invented, it was the death of TV.

When email was invented, it was the death of the post office, yet billions of things are sent via USPS every year, i.e. packages that you can't uh... email.

"Death of the Internet" ?

Yawn.