The Internet’s Structure

Today, if one has quality content and a tiny bit of technical expertise (or a modest investment), they can make their content accessible to anyone across the globe with internet access.

Information has been democratized. Knowledge is widely available today, so is publishing. Anonymous leakers of classified political information can expect to influence the outcome of the elections, regardless of whether the mainstream media had been bought and is owned by any of the parties. There is much greater liquidity of information than ever before in history.

We can say that the internet has changed things for our civilization as much as Gutenberg’s invention has.

But things are not as bright as they seem. With mass internet adoption came big money, and with big money came monopolies and the centralization of users’ data, and of control of information.

This is largely a centralization by convenience, not by compulsion. For this, we have the current internet structure to thank. We can find fault in the http protocol, client-server architecture, DNS – IP based routing and content addressing.

This image shows one of the first web servers,by Tim Berners-Lee, with a note: This machine is a server. Do not power down!!