I keep reading all these things where various companies are said to be bringing the end of the internet about, even the government is said to be interested in dismantling it. This might be something that it is possible to effect on a domestic level but not on an international level — just look how hard it is to implement a law that crosses international borders and then there is the question of where the majority of the control rests.
I suppose if it is in companies\’ interests to allow these moves to happen then it may come to be but a lot of the measurements that are supposedly being tabled would have a severe commercial impact and government, if the conspiracy theorists are to be believed, are in the pockets of big business.
If people are overly restricted in their use of a service provider or it becomes prohibitively expensive then people are going to vote with their feet and their money. If the internet gets censored and becomes an un-useful tool then people will stop using it. Can that be allowed to happen?
I can see how the stuff that they are supposed to be bringing in might be snuck in under the radar, would be levelled as hidden costs, but that is it. Perhaps I am being naive here, but as I understand with the way things are now, with the illusion of freedom, our communications are somewhat more transparent and easy to track than they might be if people shift away from the existing system. I know that after a while people become kind of blind to the things that surround them after a while — people ignore the CCTV cameras that they live in the shadows of; people ignore the fact that all their data trails can be seized if someone thinks the action is warranted.
I think the end of the internet has replaced the end of the millennium as the coming disaster du jour. Shit I could be talking out of my arse and this whole shithouse might go up in flames tomorrow. If so, I apologise to all the Cassandras running about like headless chickens at the moment — you will be proved right and you can gloat accordingly. But Christ, the Church Of Chicken Little occasionally gets a little tiresome.