The Internet Is Going To Change Everything

The internet is on the horizon. It is happening. This internet is a technology that is going to change the world, alongside the World Wide Web. It is going to be huge. Knowledge beyond measure. The world will be not as we know. A superpowered information superhighway is being established. Soon we will all be surfing the ‘net and finding our footing in a grand new interconnected world. We will look back years from now at a time before the internet and wonder how we survived. How, as a species, we operated lacking such an instant, world-spanning source of information and communication.

Every child will grow knowing no world other than one where an infinite library awaits them at any moment. Sure, personal computers are expensive now, but with all the efficiencies the internet will allot us, the price will fall swiftly. Think of the productivity increases. No more waiting days for responses in the mail, or having to wait for the morning newspaper to hear yesterday’s news, or having to make expensive long-distance phone calls during business hours. The length of work weeks will fall as productivity increases reduce the time required for labour. Entire industries will transform, and automation will position people to do not stressful work under difficult circumstance but, instead, fulfilling work under positive contexts.

We will be able to connect on a scale as yet unseen. Love and hope among humankind shared the world over and perhaps eventually even with other worlds entirely. With everyone connected at once without limits, borders will fall. A new age of global relations will blossom and bloom. Xenophobia may take a while to fall, but I’m sure it will, for a world where we interact with everyone from every background at every moment will be one where trivialities such as race, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity are irrelevant.

Books will become antiquities, as digital goods take over physical ones. A digital page can have the text expanded to sizes appropriate for the reader’s sight, and images can be expanded for inspection. A ‘book’, in the concept it will be known, won’t be limited to static material but will instead include interactives and videos. Concepts and ideas will be hyperlinked, such that a network of interconnected pages will be established. Project Xanadu and other display means like it will change how we view, interact, visualise, and manage content.

Entertainment will grow more ambitious. Individuals will have the knowledge to create and the means to distribute, such that limits are no longer for their creative realisations. They will be able to establish themselves independently on a global scale for a global audience. Enterprises will be inundated with a wealth of new self-taught talent, leading to greater ambitions in the face of competing with the swathes of indie genius. New and groundbreaking media will be created with quality as yet unseen, out of necessity to compete.

Everyone will have a website – a special type of place on the internet where a person can upload and publish things – to interact and grow on the web. People are already establishing their presences and carving out their own cyber homes. They’ll all be linked and organically self-categorising, so discovery shall be no blocker. Some websites will be dedicated entirely to the categorisation and curation of great works, but no one curation site will dominate. Ideas and concepts will move so fast, and the lack of an initial centralising source will breed a thousand self-sustaining niches capable of thriving in isolation and association.

Wrongs will be righted, as every website exists on an equal playing field, and citizen journalism explodes with power and ubiquity. Every injustice will be documented by a chorus of voices and amplified by a magnitude more. There will be no monopolies, for there will be no monoculture. Everyone will specialise and experience their interests, such that they are fulfilled. The open-source movement which has been gaining traction will explode, as anyone anywhere can contribute. Software will become a collaborative, living canvas, freed from corporate gates and improved daily by the global collective. Perfection will be reached towards out of passion.

A thousand thousand colonies will swarm around the hive and between others in a rush to create and polish. The goal is to make things better for everyone. Everyone will share what they know, however they can. Knowledge will not be gated, but open to anyone. With the sharing and accessibility of information, everyone will upskill. In a world where everyone can know and learn without hindrance. Uncommodified information and communication.

The barrier to entry will be a device and a connection. The devices will evolve, becoming a part of every activity and endeavour, and the connections will improve. Connections will be faster, will carry more data, and will become more widely available. Eventually, there will be no tether, as infrastructure is established and wired becomes wireless, allowing anyone anywhere in the whole world to log on.

Natural disasters and events of terror will be avoided, for the threat can be broadcast with ease and everyone will be elevated to conditions such that they don’t feel they must resort to extremes. Those that are bedbound or limited, unable to physically access the world, will be reconnected with it. They might be unable to go to where they wish, but they can visit through cyberspace. Doctors will be able to assess situations remotely, for people far away or restricted in movement. The rapid evolution of the technology will bring more people power and be the great bringer of equality.

Of course, every technology carries with it new abuses, new threats, and new cruelties. Yet even so, the promise outweighs the fear. The foundation is open, and collectively regulators and we as a people would have to allow the closing and control. We would have to roll over and allow their foot to crush us, and that is something we will not do, for our independence and control are our mostly strongly held values as humans.

The internet, and the web that it is establishing, is in its juvenile infancy. I’m certain there will be some pains, but this is sure to be big. It is certain to change the world, and I welcome the change with open arms. I’m excited for this great new world, even if I may only live long enough to see the first reaping of crop. The internet is sure to be a greatness and I welcome its advancements.