Is the Breakup of the Internet Inevitable?
summary
Argument: the internet is already fragmenting into national and technical blocs rather than a single open network. Evidence: China’s Great Firewall and app replacements; India’s ban of roughly 100 apps and repeated shutdowns; Ethiopia’s 18‑month blackout; GitHub and library access loss for Iranian developers; submarine cables being cut “a few times”; a Starlink‑plus‑box prototype that turns a neighborhood into a 5G hotspot; and a list of ~100 companies identified as needed for a low‑energy, degraded‑mode internet. These concrete failures push onshoring, edge computing and digital sovereignty.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:13The Open Internet
- 2:46The Paris Attack
- 4:09The Splinter Net
- 5:47Radicalization of the Basic Stack
- 7:36The Splinternet 20
- 8:39Iran
- 9:23Afghanistan
- 10:18Covid
- 11:02Digital Sovereignty
- 11:52Digital Resiliency
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