Did capitalism break the Internet?

> 20/08/2023

> With thanks and inspiration taken from the Late Night Linux podcast.

The TLDR is, YES. Continue to read to find out why.

A short introduction to the Internet

First we need to be able to make a distinction between the Internet in other words the world wide web (www) and the web as we know it today. When you navigate using your browser you will notice that there is one constant in your Internet browser of choice address bar namely "http" or mostly universally now "https". This is a protocol and it stands for hypertext transfer protocol (http) and the "s" standing for secure. Other protocol's existed and still exist but due to it's extensible nature http broke through and is now near universal. Examples of other protocol's are gopher and more recently gemini. These are now commonly referred to as "the small web".

The modern web uses Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) with many additions such as Java script, HTML 5 , CSS and many more. HTML is a markup language that supports plain text, images, embedded video and audio contents and scripts which are small programs. This is used to create the content on the web that you and I use on a daily basis.

So why..

Am I telling you all this? Or why do you even need to know?

The creation of the Internet has been credited to Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He stated, "The original idea of the web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information"

The world we live in is becoming ever more connected. This obviously includes computers and more recently smart phones. In addition to this Internet of Things "IoT" will become more and more prevalent. Examples of this are Hive, Nest, Ring, cars and any manor of house hold appliances that may or may not be connected to the Internet. All this is what science fiction writers of old dreamt about, this is progress ... right? Or might it be the dystopian future said writers warned about?

As a kid growing up the technologies we have now far exceeds what we could have wished for. A computer in your hand, amazing.

This is where advertising comes into play. Many of the online services we rely on are currently free. Think any number of Google services and others. These are funded by essentially spying on you to serve targeted adverts. I hear you say, we know.

It involves a very small number of huge companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, etc. holding an unthinkable amount of data (petabytes and petabytes). This data is not free. There will have to come a natural tipping point where the cost (servers, hardware, electricity etc.) of managing and holding this data will outstrip the revenue (from advertising, subscriptions etc.). This tipping point may not be too far down the road and arguably has started. Companies are starting to cap previously free services. Also look at most web pages today. Some have more adverts on them than the actual content. Think of the amount of videos, photo's taken every second, minute, hour per day. In June 2023, 9500 hours of video where uploaded to YouTube every minute. Even if this statistic is not one hundred percent accurate it gives us an indication. Assuming 20min of video takes up 200MB of data, you can see the problem.

Obviously there are many attempts to redress this, think archive.org for example or the small Internet eluded to above.

Changes

Twitter is a very recent example of instability under it's new management. Imagine Twitter is a service you are reliant on for your income for example? Imagine a service you rely on changes and this changes are no longer acceptable to you. A service in which you have invested, time effort and entrusted your data to. It changes to a point you can no longer use it or worse, it just goes away. This is entirely possible. Would you be prepared for such an event? My educated guess is that the majority of readers are not. If you are congratulations, engage your smug face.

But I digress. The fact is that critical services are owned by a very small minority of very big businesses should give us pause for thought. These services can change, charge or even disappear if they are no longer profitable. Don't believe me, just take a look at Google and it's very long history of just shutting services down. Think Stadia.

What can you do?

Think about the basic principle of, if it's free, you are the product. This does not always apply as paid products will also use your data and free products such as free and open source generally will not. Use services that you have the maximum amount of control where you can. Contribute back if the product is free and open source where you can. Reject any services you can that actively take away your freedoms and encourage others to join you. Only if the mass moves the desired effect can be seen. Think about Twitter (or X as it's now known) and a mass move to alternative platforms such as Mastodon.

What might an Internet in a non-capitalist world have looked like?

If big monolithic businesses did not own the majority of the Internet this would have to be user generated and owned by all. This is essentially what happened in the earlier days of the web. There would be no need for adverts or vast aggregated data held by said companies on us. The "free" internet does arguably no longer exist. Google's Web Environment Integrity is the latest attack on this freedom.

The profit driven, advert laden, slow and bloated web we have today could look very different. Berners-Lee himself talked at length about some of the profit driven nature of the modern web. Top level domains bought and sold for huge sums. Users find themselves in echo chambers in social media sites such as Facebook, Youtube, TikToc etc. Designed to keep you watching and clicking to serve you more and more adverts. Could this be different, I pose it could.

Lets educate, understand and organise to take back the web for the good of all and remove the giant businesses from the equation that exploit, use you, your data, your mental health and your dignity for their own gains and with the sole motive of profit and power.

Think about the need to use the services you have and explore alternatives.