[RiverCrochet]

Your last paragraph: it is sad. But we had successful global networks before the Internet (the PSTN, telegraph) and we'll certainly have global networks after this at some point in human history. Perhaps in the the time between the Internet and what's next, the world will become a bit more mature about a few things.

[Spooky23]

Those predecessor networks weren’t problem free. Many conversations to “interesting” places were monitored.

The counter-reaction to this era will include additional communication control.

[mschuster91]

> But we had successful global networks before the Internet (the PSTN, telegraph)

These were ripe with espionage, wiretapping and sabotage. Access to it used to be highly restricted as well, up until the 90s for example you were only allowed to connect government-licensed modems to the German PSTN directly.

[RiverCrochet]

> These were ripe with espionage, wiretapping and sabotage.

Just like today's Internet. BGP spoofing, CALEA, DDoS.

> Access to it used to be highly restricted as well ...

And this is where the regression or "downfall" is beginning. Access to the Internet (as in ability to send/receive arbitrary data to the wider Internet) is something I bet is going to be increasingly restricted, but most people won't notice because they don't understand the difference between apps and the Internet.

I'd be surprised if direct access to the Internet is possible for consumers in the next 10 years. Everything will have to be through approved apps (age assurance is going to be the catalyst) that work over registered tunnels contracted through ISPs, if there isn't an outright blurring or merger between the concepts of phone/CPE, ISP and CDN. Your non-tech layperson will not know any difference whatsoever if all they use are their phone plan, streaming/banking apps and Facebook.

[angry_octet]

Surely this was simply the nature of Deutsche Bundespost / Deutsche Telekom? Like, of course you had to use hardware they had approved to connect to their network.

This was the same in many places. The cost of hardware and connection time limited connections, and no one had cryptography except the government and ultra nerds.

[sneak]

There was also no way for a normal person to easily and cheaply communicate with 20 million people in realtime.

[RiverCrochet]

If you're a normal person, you still can't, but it definitely looks like you can by ad-supported social networks. If you have 20 million followers on Facebook, your posts aren't guaranteed to reach them, unless you pay Facebook as an advertiser. Running a web server that handles and actually gets 20 million simultaneous connections for any length of time requires you to spend/have money or not be a normal person.

[jazzyjackson]

this is teleological thinking. it's not necessarily the case that things get better over time.

[dingnuts]

there's a lot of evidence things do generally get better over time, though. Jon Haidt and his ilk... I forget all involved... have done research into it

obviously it can be bumpy and maybe there's a Great Filter or you happen to live during a bad period but life is certainly much longer and less brutal than it was for 99.9% of human history

[sigbottle]

Things have mostly gotten better through centralization and unification, which is certainly a way of getting better.