Power and the Internet

This is very true. The default state of the Internet is not to empower everyone. The default state is to further the power of those who already have it, with emphasis on anyone with power over the Internet.

The Internet is young, large powers are slow to adapt, and the Internet community doesn't have the best foresight, so the popular consensus has been that the Internet is by default the world's power balancer.

We've seen some attempts to control the Internet, but only a few have been successful. While some people use that as evidence the Internet "wants to be free", that's just the beginning. Nothing prevents more powers from trying more often and with better tactics. And they will.

Letting the Internet be a universal power balancer is going to require active work and engagement. It won't stay in the current form for forever.

Voilà, the three-handled hammer, that you cannot use without the invisible hand of corporation or government to enable your strokes.

I'm not a total libertarian, for example in that I see a clear need for e.g. data privacy that includes regulation that prevents corporations -- and government -- from turning my every activity into personally identifiable analytics datapoints.

And I don't want to be vaporized or poisoned as the result of someone else's perhaps misguided cost/benefit analysis.

But giving that status quo ultimate control in ever-increasing perpetuity (e.g. Mickey Mouse copyright)? No. Institutions have lifespans, just like individuals. And evolutionary needs.

As for "the Internet". We who don't want to be wholly commoditized, need to create and maintain our own physical layers, and attendant security -- our definition of security -- on same.

It's not about "something for nothing". TANSTAAFL. It's about preventing "nothing for something" and systems that approach this in a counter-productive fashion.