The 2020s will be the beginning of the consolidation, monopolization and the bureaucratization of the Internet. Govts, media, non techies have finally realized the Interent’s ability for construtive destruction of existing monopoloies and power structures and are seeking to restrain it to hold on to their monopoly.
What prompted me to write this was the complete de-platforming of Parler. Yes, it is a clusterfack filled with crazy manicas, but that is besides the point. The point was how quickly Big Tech swooped-in, co-ordinated and killed off Parler like a pack of wolves hunting down a rabbit. The takedown was swift and immediately effective , and extremely chilling.
We know how much of a monopoly Google and Facebook / Twitter are when it commes to communication. They control 90% of the ad-revenue, or even more, have the biggest media platforms on the world and pretty much is the only conduit to the rest of the world.
What is more scaries is the ability of Amazon/AWS to cut off access to running your servers on the internet. This is even more chilling and dangerous.
See, outsourcing your skill and ability to maintain servers, datacenters, to AWS is like outsourcing your manufacturing to China. Once you lose, you probably wont re-learn it in time and by then, your business might no longer exist.
Post 1970s , NASA lost the blueprints and ability to engineer an engine like the Rocketdyne F-1. When SpaceX and the rest of the companies tried to reverse-engineer the F1 and build a massive engine like it from scratch, it almost proved nigh on impossible and took more than a decade (I think they still havent made an engine as powerful as a single F-1).
AWS, Google, MSFT, FANG now make the majority of the internet’s hardware, communication AND SOFTWARE. If the BIG TECH majority even find you a threat, not only will they cut off your ability to communicate, or deploy to a server across the world, but even prevent you from writing software in the First place.
Twitter deletes China embassy’s Xinjiang ’emancipation’ tweet.
The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws which regulate an establishment of religion, or that would prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights.