Forget Tubes, The Future of the Internet is Nodes

Net Neutrality has been in the news off and on for the past year Ajit Pai and the Federal Communications Commission have worked to decide whether the Obama-era policy of regulation ISP to deliver all internet traffic equally should continue to be changed. 

For a full explanation on this I highly recommend this video:

Ultimately, the regulation was changed and there are still last-ditch attempts to stop it through Congress. As an artist, I fully support these attempts. The internet is, and should be, and open marketplace for ideas. It is one of the few spaces where anyone, anywhere can access information and data. However, most people don’t understand how important this function is in our lives. Everyone deserves to find quality internet services in my area that enable them to access the wealth of information that is out there, quickly and at an affordable price. The internet was created in an academic world where there were strong barriers to accessing information.  The internet was created in an academic world where there were strong barriers to accessing information. Information was locked up in physical copies that could only be accessed within certain contractual frameworks. Even in the public, information was locked up in books, newspapers, and magazines. Those things had to be purchased and produced. The early internet pioneers like, Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf and Steve Wozniak (who have signed a letter to Congress asking to preserve this regulation) envisioned a platform where information could flow freely and millions could access data, information, and experiences. With the advent of technology like the TCP/IP protocol and the personal computer, web pages exploded.

The Internet: Not A Fad!

Until the smartphone and mobile apps, thats how the internet was experienced: through computers via webpages. How those webpages were linked together became the basis for Google to finally index the internet in a way that was easily searchable. No need for AOL keywords or other search engine specific terminology. Until the app, to access the information you had to have a functional browser that could visit these webpages with the information or activity. However, apps have separated us from the very real bones of the internet. When was the last time you visited Instagram without using the app? This type of interaction, where the internet is simply a conduit for a service is the future of the internet. 

That’s not necessarily a good thing. I follow Hossein Derakhshan who has lamented the “end of the internet” He spent 6 years in an Iranian jail for blogging against the Ayatollah regime in Iran. His blog set off protests and was a touch-stone for iranian freedom groups who resist the theocracy. Would he have had that success now? Probably not. His content would have to go viral on social media first. Building his following from a simple blog post webpage is much more of an uphill battle than it used to be.  That is because the internet is organizing itself into different nodes. 

The Future of the Internet

I think the future of the internet looks something like a series of poles or nodes. In the future, we may find ISPs partnering with tech companies to offer their services at specific rates or guaranteed speeds. This is one of the fears of the end of net neutrality and in some countries like India and Spain, some services already offer access to certain websites and services for a flat fee. they don’t offer the entire internet, just certain services. This means that the internet is no longer a medium of communication, but rather an infrastructure that underlies various services. Charges for using off network services

In the future we could see a much stronger sense of an Amazon Network, a Google Network, a Facebook network, or an Apple Network with content and access neatly walled off into different gardens. This is not a new prediction but instead of being stuck in a garden, people will bounce between different nodes for different services. You might use Amazon for content, Apple for music, and Google for maps and search. All of those things rely on the internet but only as a vehicle for information. You’re not really experiencing the internet as such. It’s merely delivering content through a provider. Without the node (and it’s costs) that information is not accessible any other way. 

There is also some major changes to the very reality of how we use the internet:

• There may be lots of different internet networks instead of a global standard.
• Verified ID for online transactions (security is making this essential)
• Online ID (loss of privacy and anonymity)
• Increased tracking of movement around the internet tied to that ID

There is a threat to public discourse as well and the the treat is already well known. Russia was able to use the various walled gardens within the Facebook and Twitter nodes to manipulate public opinion. That effort would be much more difficult without the TV-like emotional charge of social media. Imagine what could happen when only one node on a certain network reports something. It could be dismissed as “fake news” simply because it came from a certain content node. 

The Internet Was Created to Break Down Barriers

The internet was meant to be this great moderating force where multiple voices could be heard and information could be quickly and easily accessed. Instead of an open plain of information different content nodes are simply rising up and people are gathering around them. Instead of traffic and content freely moving around the internet, traffic and content will have no reason to leave it’s node. It will be difficult for people to leave different nodes or even use different nodes. The days of starting a website or blog post and being able to attract traffic to that content will become difficult. To get traction and make money, content will have to join a node. 

Some might say that this is great news for local news outlets, newspapers and other traditional media that need funding in order to continue to function. Indeed, it may save some of them, if the nodes  decide that those content providers are valuable enough to pay them for what they do or actually share advertising revenue in significant amounts. However, as proven by content providers like the New York Times, that is much easier said than done. NYT is one of the few platforms to successfully create a digital funding structure for it’s content. However, what about independent publishers and content providers? What about local daily newspapers? There is no guarantee that they will be able to replicate that success. 

What Do We Do With These Nodes?

Tech companies have resisted become publishers, although increasingly that is what they are and that means they have responsibility in what they publish and how it is distributed. For the nodes of the future, they will have to more carefully manage how content moves because the tubes have been pinched off in favor of these nodes. I don’t mean to fear-monger but I find this future to be really frightening, both as an independent publisher but also as a citizen. Can we really trust these tech companies? I would argue that we cannot and we are about to surrender a great deal to them.