What do you think the internet will be like in 7 years?
I think the liklihood of increasing climatic and economic disruptions will
erode the internet as we know it, leaving a boutique internet for wealthy
areas that consist mostly of connectivity for proprietary application
suites and their supporting servers and technologies, and a utilitarian,
low-power/low bandwith internet for the rest of the world. A digital
feudal system of competing platforms that are each their own media
ecosystem, communications platform, and ad/propaganda service, and an
alternative patchwork system of pirate services that will be criminalized
any time they become organized enough to be a threat. The resulting
internet of haves and have-nots will constantly be leaking into one
another, influencing one another, in an asymmetric tug-of-war between
extraction and innovation.