The internet is fine

[aero]

The internet is fine, and it will continue going on as-is. This of course won't last forever and the internet will eventually become obsolete like its predecessors. It will most likely die under its own weight (see below), and there's little to be done about that. Net neutrality, copyright, DRM, DMCA, SESTA, Article 13 and whatever other monthly memes that will kill the internet will not kill the internet. I'll justify this with the same info I've used in other conversations and on Discord.

1. The internet is already consolidated.

Spoiler: show

Big tech companies already take in the overwhelming majority of the traffic. Any laws passed are between them and the government body; they don't really have your blog or YouTube channel in mind (just the ads on it). It got to this point because of the DMCA, and DRM as well as many other laws and decisions made by groups like the W3C. When it comes to things like Net Neutrality its about deals between ISPs and Netflix/YouTube, not you. This is just how the internet is being carved, not killed, to make certain groups more money.

2. The internet is bloated.

Spoiler: show

The average webpage is larger than 1MB while entire books are around that size or less. Page sizes are increasing and it uses up data. There's no sign of this trend being reversed, and if it continues websites will soon require 4GB of memory to load. Before RAM above 1GB was common, it was unheard of that websites would use anything more than a few kilobytes.

3. Something better is coming along.

Spoiler: show

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networking

Mesh networks, and 5G technologies are developing giving new levels of freedom and solving problems fundamental to the design of the internet itself. More people are moving into cities which is going to make the old cables ISPs don't upgrade useless, and mesh networking is likely to enable big business in buildings and allow much more local control of networks as opposed to the hold ISPs have over the internet. Likewise, old standards and protocols that leave major vulnerabilities if not constantly monitored can and will be fixed making them obsolete (such as http).

Also I'd be remiss if I didn't share Bryan Lunduke's videos that I'm borrowing points from:

Spoiler: show

[Sup3rM4r10Br0s]

Interesting, I'm surprised no one ever considered this information when the whole "Net-Neutrality" panic arose.

[aero]

Yeah idk dude. I for one want the internet to die under the weight of javascript and 4K streaming and then to usher in decentralized 5G networks running wasm powered sites.

Also, I like this conversation with 3Blue1Brown and Ben Eater that discusses the actual infrastructure question of net neutrality and not getting hung up on the "bits are bits" and "muh netflix" astroturf.