A two-tiered internet?
Is the party over? Corporate lobbies (and others) are now demanding faster, more secure internet service for their websites and they’re willing to pay a premium. Internet providers are considering taking this idea on, as the Economist says, “in effect creating faster and slower lanes on the internet.”
I have read about this for a while now, but if you’d like to learn more this Economist article summarises the situation quite well: http://www.economist.com/node/16941635
Personally the idea of a two tiered internet is scary as hell – not only will it concentrate control of information into corporate or state hands (whoever is willing to pay), it will likely stifle innovation as the next ‘big thing’ will not be able to compete with the speeds of the established players.
What are you thoughts? Am I too mistrusting of corporate interests? Or is this something to fear?
P.
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Surely you can do this already to an extent by increasing the bandwidth available to/from the server your website is hosted on and various other things to speed up access to your site.
Well from what I understand there are many ways organisations can speed up their website, but this is about a more fundamental change.
This is about the companies who control the networks in-between the servers, basically the infrastructure the internet is run on. Since the dawn of the net, the network operates on a ‘net neutrality’ principle, basically: “every packet of data, regardless of its contents, should be treated the same way, and the best effort should always be made to forward it.”
This may now change, with network operators picking which ‘packets of data’ to forward on faster and which to put in the slow lane.
This would be terrible if it happened. The sheer beauty of the web is the open nature of it. Indeed I've seen the likes of Jeff Stibel compare the web to a brain, but with so many nodes in it an incredibly powerful brain. If we start erecting barriers to that then it severely diminishes the effectiveness of the web.
I have often wondered whether the benefits of the web: increased collaboration, the transferring of ideas, the removal of state boundaries have been countered by the increased amount of time people spend looking at cats playing the piano on YouTube or going on facebook at work....
Have a look around the office now...how many people are on social mediasites or hotmail accounts rather than being productive or innovative?
Interesting piece here on the governance of the web.
http://www.economist.com/node/21530955