Have you ever notice that whenever somebody gets something for free, they have a tendency to take that gift for granted? It seems like people tend to take better care of the stuff that they’ve earned – than the things they were given.
This is something most of us are guilty of, myself included…
But there’s something about “free stuff” that tends to bring out the worst in people – and that idea really got me thinking about something we all seem to take for granted…
The internet.
Many of us depend on the world wide web for our daily activities, such as banking, communication and, as in my case, a place of work…
But have you ever thought about what would happen if the entire thing got shut down? Imagine turning on your computer and going to check your bank balance or work emails and there’s nothing.
Black.
A scary scenario, I know…
But according to Canadian tech magazine, MarketNewsGadgetTalk, this “shut down” scenario is exactly what could possibly happen within the next three to five years.
In the article, they reference Nemertes Research, and how the company foresees Internet “brownouts”, slower-paced services, and difficulty in accessing specific content.
The reason?
Well, with the growing popularity of bandwidth-heavy content, like streaming videos and music downloading; as well as the increased use of the internet on portable devices, like mobile phones and tablets, are all taking the toll that “100% free access” exacts…
And it’s about to be felt in a big way.
“The Internet is inherently self-protecting,” says the company’s President and senior founding partner Johna Till Johnson, “You can’t push more traffic onto the ‘net than it can handle.”
The company compares this sort of scenario to that of an open highway and busy local roads…
“If the freeway is empty but local roads are congested,” the firm explains, “users will spend most of their time stuck in traffic at the edges.”
That means that instantaneous logins we’ve become so accustomed to could become a thing of the past…
Replaced instead with having to wait long periods for our “opening in traffic” in order to get us onto the information super highway.
But what can we do to stop this shut down?
Well, Nemertes claims that the industry, as a whole, needs to invest 60-70% more funds on broadband access capacity like cloud computing than initially planned (Just over $100 Billion). Because if we don’t…
Nemertes predicts the Internet’s capacity will not be able to support user demand.
Something scary to think about…
But who’s supposed to shoulder this cost?
I mean, the internet is free…
Nobody owns it. So, whose responsibility is it to cover the costs?
I guess we’ll find out…
Anyway, just some food for thought. I hope that since you’re logged on reading this, you’ll think about the possibilities of losing out on having the freedom to do so again.
Because it’s becoming a very real possibility…