The Internet is dying slowly as the frontier closes. As States around the world start achieving greater and greater control of the Internet through its on- and off-ramps (service providers and content providers respectively), that which made the Internet special—access to what could not be found anywhere else—is destroyed. It was the inherently anarchic nature of the Internet which made it such a phenomenon. For the first time in their lives, people could access porn, political commentary, news, goods, and services which had not been approved by the State and its corporate masters.
Of course it couldn’t last. We are in the midst of seeing the Internet transformed into Television II by the concerted effort of industry and the State. They don’t want an interactive forum, they want something which will make you sit still while they pump propaganda into your gaping mouth. When IPv6 is finally rolled out (and it’s happening as we speak) the Internet will be dead. Under IPv4, all packets are treated the same way. It takes a great deal of work and money for ISPs to inspect every packet passing through, and there are always ways around it. With IPv6, every packet will be part of a hierarchy, and those who pay for better service will see their packets shoved to the head of the line. Banks, States, and corporations will be able to dominate the bandwidth, and the rest of us ordinary people will get the crumbs that are left over. They’ll have ABC and we’ll get PBS.
Of course, all that means is that those of us at the bleeding edge will need to move on the next public, anarchic forum for the free exchange of ideas. The State has been trying to catch up for 4000 years, from agora to the printing press to the CB radio to the Internet, Authority has consistently been a few years behind the ball, always clamping down too late to prevent the next outbreak of freedom. So it had been, and so mote it be.