Posts Tagged ‘splinter’

In Tim Wu’s new review of Jonathan Zittrain’s The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, the Columbia Law professor spends considerable time explaining how the economics of media have historically led to a consolidation that many would see as anathema to the diverse marketplace of ideas that we want. His discussion is well worth a read, but what I thought was most important from the piece was his mention of the many threats to the generative Internet:

“But I must part company with Zittrain over his main and more somber argument: that security crises will form the driving narrative of the Internet’s future. I do not doubt that there will be never-ending security problems and reactions. But the question is not whether cybersecurity will matter, but whether it will matter most. Zittrain’s security saga does not look to me like a full account of the future. He is leaving out many of the external forces that will change the Internet. One is the power of government, which, especially overseas, has begun reshaping the network to fit its obsessions. Another is the combined forces of language and culture, which are driving a once-global Internet into something more like a series of national ones: a Japanese Internet, a Spanish Internet, and so on.

But most important, the real story may lie in the power of industry structure and the long trend toward centralized control in the media industries. Over the last decade, the Internet has become interwoven with media and communications industries collectively worth trillions, with economics all of their own. Unlike Zittrain, I think that industry dynamics, more than a demand for safe appliances, will determine the future of this strange and extraordinary medium.”

A Typology of Threats to the ‘Net

So which threat is the most disconcerting? He points to four:

1. Zittrain’s security-driven adoption of sterile devices,
2. Wu’s economic-driven centralization,
3. Zuckerman’s culture- and language-driven splintered Internet, or
4. Barlow’s government intervention

Personally, I’m inclined to think a splintered net is the most troublesome because it destroys the forum for international conversation and deliberation we wanted the Internet to become. But what macro trend concerns you?