The future of internet
“The Future of the Internet And How to Stop It” might sound like a misleading topic, and towards disrupting the internet as we know it today, but this ebook by Jonathan L. Zittrain is unlike any such thing. If history is any guide on what to expect in the future, then this book points us towards where we are heading—with regard to the internet, and what needs to be done.
Our fortuitous starting point is a generative device in tens of millions of hands on a neutral Net. To maintain it, the users of those devices must experience the Net as something with which they identify and belong. We must use the generativity of the Net to engage a constituency that will protect and nurture it. That constituency may be drawn from the ranks of a new generation able to see that technology is not simply a video game designed by someone else, and that content is not simply what is provided through a TiVo or iPhone.
It’s interesting that the author considers Indian enterpreneur Rajesh Jain’s Novatium Nova as a non-generative machine—likened to a similar device like the iPhone, which spells “control.”
The Indian government announced in 2006 that it would not sign up to buy any XO machines, in part due to difficulties encountered with the Simputer, a for-profit project begun in 1998 to deliver handheld technology to India’s rural population, which is made up mostly of farmers and laborers—many of whom are illiterate and speak regional dialects. In 2001, Bruce Sterling lionized the Simputer as “computing as it would have looked if Gandhi had invented it, then used Steve Jobs for his ad campaign.” It never took off. Instead India appears to be placing its bets on the Novantium Nova or a similar device, non-generative machines fully tethered to a subscription server for both software and content.
This book paints a larger picture of “Freedom 0″ and its underlying philosophy—so applicable to every forward looking medium, device, or mechanism, and how Freedom 0 is slowly becoming a primary cause for concern for the overall health of the internet.
This book is a must read for every netizen.