Hypothetically, let’s say the internet breaks down with no recovery in the near future. How would this affect culture in America (or the entire world)? Would monoculture return? The specific cultures I mean are…
Politics Influencers Big Tech Hollywood Work Force ???
Imo, with no internet, Hollywood would probably be the biggest beneficiary from this. Television would probably become a juggernaut again. I think influencers would fall off the face of the earth without the internet. Big Tech would crash. Politics would probably start to shift dramatically towards the left with the lack of echo chambers online. And I think labor would stall for like a month or two.
So yeah, without internet, I think Hollywood thrives and almost every other industry or culture takes a big hit.
What do you think?
Politics would probably start to shift dramatically towards the left with the lack of echo chambers online.
No, it would not. The USA was not more liberal before the internet. Fascism rose without the internet in many countries.
It would be nice to not have Russian trolls though.
I think right-wing talk radio has been going for quite a while as well.
I think people forget these talk radio shows are still a thing. A lot of us, especially Millenials and younger, are streaming our own music/audiobooks/podcasts in the car. But there are a lot of people who listen to talk radio.
As someone who pre-dates the public Internet and spent a lot of time dialling in to BBSes when most people thought personal computers were for nerds…
The Internet will fracture, but not break down. What would happen is balkanization of the Internet, with physical areas running their own networks, and a bunch of poor “dark” areas. Some of those networks would likely have low bandwidth interconnections, such that digest data could still spread, much like the early days of usenet and fidonet.
Local culture and tribalism would increase, and information would skyrocket in value. The rich would still have access to, and control, the information. The poor would be left out completely.
Since a great deal of essential services rely on the Internet. It would probably be a bit like New York during 9/11 or Canada when one of their biggest ISP died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_during_the_September_11_attacks
To be fair, Rogers didn’t die. It monopolized data communication with insufficient regulation. It had an inevitable outage that could have been bypassed if not for the reasons listed.
Rogers continues to make stacks while the public foots the bill.
I think we need to differentiate a bit between “no Internet” and “no open Internet”. I have just enough grey hair and health problems to remember what life was like before the Internet really took off: you dialed into your ISP, like Compuserve or AOL, over a land line, and were charged per minute. And those services couldn’t really talk to each other. But back then, computers also ran at 10 MHz and couldn’t fit in your pocket.
So there was even connectivity back then, it was just very limited and each ISP had to provide it’s own information, because they didn’t really talk to each other. The same technological advancements would have happened over the last 50 years. Computers and networking would have gotten faster, cell networks would evolve to handle data and be more efficient, and broadband access to everyone’s home and office would have happened. But if the Internet didn’t happen in the open way it did, with an emphasis on open standards, its entirely possible each major media company would have had its own network to subscribe to, and it would be a lot more expensive.
But would that really be bad? Would social media really have eaten our brains if we paid for it per minute?
Good retrospective on dial up. But I feel most people wouldn’t go through that hassle.
Right, I think without the Open Internet, we would still be getting fast broadband, but likely tied to your Cable or Telco provider’s network, and things that are currently websites would have to arrange for a presence on each network they want to do business on. And they would probably meter access, just like they do with your electric bill, or your cable company does with a basic tier but then paid access to anything important.
Everything would take time to be fine for the younglings but many of us grew up in the age of non internet connected computers and consoles so it would be completely fine. Might actually be nice to be fair.
Who do you think gets hit the hardest from this?
