Re: internet futures

[Mark Tinka <mark@tinka.africa>]

On 3/26/21 19:58, Randy Bush wrote:

> in 2010, the internet society made some videos on possible internet
> futures ten years out, i.e. nowish.  nothing spot on, but themes
> can be seen for sure.
>
>      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB4zfGwctGc

The production style alone takes me back. I never owned a Blackberry, 
but I just thought about it :-).

 * They were right about platforms becoming important (tablets, mobile
   phones, wearables, e.t.c.). What they didn't foresee was that
   platforms and traditional OS's would be outdone by the app. The app
   is now everything, and all platforms and OS's strive to do is make
   sure the app is front & centre, dulling the hardware and software
   fundamentals into the background.

 * I can see why they envisaged the Internet getting broken up into
   partitioned islands. What they didn't account for was that telco's
   would no longer be in charge of building the global network at
   scale, but rather, content folk.

 * They put a bit of stock in classic news still being relevant 10
   years on. I can see why. But hell, social media took care of that
   problem :-).

 * Where I would agree one of their assumptions "may" align with one
   niche - the newspaper - in 2021, is that news content will not be
   restricted to professional journalists, but also to regular folk who
   are granted some kind of access to publish on the digital version of
   a reputable paper. This, of course, is only if traditional news
   media still wants to promote the idea that quality news actually
   matters.

If the last decade is anything to go by, I'm keen to see what the next 
one brings.

Mark.