Saving the Internet (my modest contribution)

[Jackpine Radical]

I wrote & submitted the following comments in support of the Open Internet. I'm putting it here in case others might find it worth mining for their own contributions to the effort.

The Internet is a magnificent tool for connecting people internationally, allowing us to discover our mutual humanity, and permitting us to exchange information easily. I am old enough to have lived most of my life in the pre-Internet era, and therefore have some perspective on how utterly transformative it has been.

The creation of the Internet ranks with the invention of writing, the invention of the printing press, and the development of broadcast communications in its significance for the species. It is already unleashing a level of creativity not seen since the European Renaissance. It does, and should, belong to the people; to permit commercial interests to dominate it with no higher purpose than to make profits would be a betrayal of the public trust, and would result in a crippling of the vast potential that this wonderful medium holds for us.

Previous cultural advances such as the printing press and broadcasting always increased the capacity for a few to send messages to the many, while the telephone permitted individuals to communicate with each other. The Internet is an entirely new development, distinct from the communications advances that came before, in that it empowers the many to communicate with the many. Any given individual with an important message has the potential ability to be heard around the world. Commercial restrictions on access would destroy this new and liberating capacity for individual expression.

https://www.battleforthenet.com/?skip_email=true

[hunter]

1. K&R

I remember sending and receiving telegrams internationally because the mail was too slow, or the phone service too expensive or non-existent.

I'm not that old either.