The end of the internet
Till 2015 the future of the internet will evolve in a positive and negative way, depending on the driving forces involved. But most importantly, I believe that the internet will not remain a sustainable information network. Why could not it be replaced by a network that finally leads to the society that our subconscious has always wanted us to build up? Here is a short explanation of this thought.
The positive evolution of the internet will transform it into an extension of human beings thanks to technology, education, knowledge, health, and employment. High technology will support services in a way to optimize performance and cost trade-offs. These technologies will include for example: auto-adaptation of services to the available bit rate and to the terminal capabilities, flexible access networks capable of easily integrating new radio interfaces increasing user peak bit rate, continuous connection to the mobile network via radio access technologies optimized for different contexts. The global electronic education from the development of the internet will be both the enabler of a lifelong and higher education and a worlwide low cost education. The internet will facilitate knowedge sharing between countries, and therefore, will become one of the antidotes for eliminating poverty in the developing world and fatal diseases like AIDS and cancers. People will also assume more responsibility for their health with cyberdocs. Unemployment and unbalanced supply and demand of the labour market will not be problems anymore. The internet will connect all countries making possible for organizations to hire virtual workers and for people to work for organizations located on the other side of the planet.
The negative evolution will affect the harmony found with the positive one showing both that the benefits of the future internet can become serious threats and that technology, and especially the internet, cannot find solutions to any lasting problems of humanity. The free regulation on the internet will contribute to the increase of cyberwar, with for instance, more and more phishing attacks and other types of cyber terrorisms. Information sharing through the internet will drive to the proliferation of nuclear weapons terrorizing any place on the earth. Private identity will have no meaning anymore because of the failure in the setting of too many divergent national regulations regarding disclosure of personal information. In brief, a fundamental crisis, or even an apocalypse, will happen obliging all the countries, for the fist time of humanity, to commonly agree on the replacement of the internet by a highly regulated and protected network.
This future or this end of the internet should be perceived as an opportunity to build up again the real society where human beings can grow while taking advantage of the scientific and technological progresses. I leave you to dream of this society, your society…