Originally Posted by
ReviewDude
The internet is facing an issue at the moment, called net neutrality (or the lack thereof), which is likely to play some part in its future. In the future, the internet as we know it will be controlled, by three means:
1. The Providers - back to neutrality again, eventually, when companies that supply broadband cross the 'last mile', they will ascertain their power to control your internet access. Say BT Broadband finds a lot of its customers moving to AOL - they'll just block their website from access. This is a part of the control, it may not be noticeable particularly, but it will be there, very soon.
2. The Advertisers - Companies make billions of dollars from the Internet every week, and the majority of that is through careful advertising on popular sites. However, at present, people get the option (when they host their website) not to put any ads on. Not so in 20 years' time. All advertising will be done client-side, as once again providers cave, and allow advertisers to fill up any free space on web-pages as you visit them (not to mention with ads very specific to your browsing habits). This is one big cycle, advertisers pay ISPs, the users of whom then pay the advertisers through sales.
3. Censorship - They did it in China, they'll do it here. There'll come a point, very soon, where people run out of other people to blame that their children do stupid things, and will turn to point the finger at the internet (as many already have). This, eventually, will lead to the government (in all countries) deciding that enough is enough, and complying the internet to follow existing laws, whilst drafting new ones.
This will probably vary by country, but imagine an internet that is filtered (much like at school, or college), however no proxies will get round it. We'll see a team of people who trawl through the internet, monitoring and arresting those that talk about illegal offences, such as making bombs.
This is bar far the most bleak future for the internet, and one I fear never comes true. I'm comforted by the fact that we have one place in this world where freedom of speech is almost always free - so enjoy it while it lasts, because YouTube will be gone (copyrighted material), as will file-sharing and torrent sites, anything that's even vaguely offensive will be no more.
;)