Cloudflare has an interesting microsite that emphasizes how the open nature of the Internet has made it the global connective layer we are plugged into during this period of global isolation. Worth a read.
The stage was set for an always-on, always-connected future. A demanding world where every user would choose how they use the network. And the network was almost ready. In the meantime, home and office computer users were forced to dial into private services like AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe. These closed worlds contrasted sharply with the open Internet growing quietly in the background.
The Internet we know today was dreamt in the 1960s, debugged in the 1970s and built in the 1980s. Thirty years of work to create a reliable, flexible, inexpensive, global network.
As 1990 dawned it was ready for all of us. Thirty more years later, in 2020, it binds us together.
In the next few years, during the next global crisis, we will debate issues like net neutrality, like data ownership, like censorship, because there will be issues of not just the economy but also of life and death riding on policy around these issues.
Case in point: during the 2018 California fires, Verizon famously throttled the fire departments’ speeds because they were out of data. There is an argument that they should have been compelled to provide the best possible bandwidth to an emergency service, against the principles of neutrality.
Similarly, you could make the case that bandwidth on Zoom (or Skype or other video collaboration services) be reserved first for governments, medical and healthcare personnnel, other essential services and then other (possibly paying) businesses. Again, against the principles of neutrality.
Censorship examples are easier to find and make. The last twenty years was using terrorism as the bogeyman, the next couple of years will likely be using that of a public health crisis. India has a problem of misinformation spread by people over Whatsapp. During the current global pandemic, it’s easy to spread panic via rumors and easy to risk health by touting suprious cures. There is a case to be made for censoring content on these private messaging platforms.
We don’t have the answers, but we will need to confront these questions in the years right ahead.