Reality Check: Death of Free Internet is Imminent- Canada Will Be Test Case

"The corporate marauders will iron out the wrinkles in Canada and then spring the new, castrated version of the Internet on the rest of the world, probably with little fanfare, except for some dire warnings about the ‘evil’ of the Internet (free) and the CEO’s spouting about ’safety and security’. These buzzwords usually work pretty well.

What will the Internet look like in Canada in 2010? I suspect that the ISP’s will provide a “package” program as companies like Cogeco currently do. Customers will pay for a series of websites as they do now for their television stations. Television stations will be available on-line as part of these packages, which will make the networks happy since they have lost much of the younger market which are surfing and chatting on their computers in the evening. However, as is the case with cable television now, if you choose something that is not part of the package, you know what happens. You pay extra.

And this is where the Internet (free) as we know it will suffer almost immediate, economic strangulation. Thousands and thousands of Internet sites will not be part of the package so users will have to pay extra to visit those sites! In just an hour or two it is possible to easily visit 20-30 sites or more while looking for information. Just imagine how high these costs will be."
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I'm sure that some clever "geek" will find a way around this problem.
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I sure hope so.

We should have seen this coming.
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Originally Posted by Little Englander (sour):
I'm sure that some clever "geek" will find a way around this problem.

Forgive me - what do you mean exactly ?
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I don't know enough about IT to be "exactly" sure of my meaning but, didn't Bill Gates and his "geek" friends come up with the internet or at least they brought it into the homes of the masses, surely he isn't the only IT gifted "geek" in the world.
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Originally Posted by :
I don't know enough about IT to be "exactly" sure of my meaning but, didn't Bill Gates and his "geek" friends come up with the internet or at least they brought it into the homes of the masses, surely he isn't the only IT gifted "geek" in the world.

The US military came up with the concept of the Internet and English scientist Tim Lee-Bernes was the main driving force behind the WWW and HTML markup at CERN.

It is a bit early to see how this is going to go to be honest. I've heard plenty of rumours regarding Internet 2 and the whole issue of ISPs being responsible for the content of the traffic on their infrastructure.

If the cable companies get their way then the net will probably end up costing a fortune like it did back in '95.

Ea of dune
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There are enough IT savvy people out there who will crack it and dreams of a controlled internet are just that dreams
Look at "The Pirate Bay" and what has happened there, Pandoras box is open and the control freaks will find it very hard to shut it
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I wish I understood more about this subject - I must take more time to research it in more depth.

Don't the telecommunications companies own the bandwidth and can therefore control the means of accessing the internet ?

Even if they can't control the content, I suspect governments will have the ability to introduce spying laws in conjunction with ISP's to enforce unfair laws regarding blogging.

And what is there is to stop your ISP charging you for using a particular website that isn't deemed part of a pre-determined package ?

Or is that where the geeks may come in ?
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Well I for one, doubt that this will happen.
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Originally Posted by Westcountryman:
Well I for one, doubt that this will happen.

For someone that is apparently in opposition to RFID, you seem to be remarkably trustworthy of the government's motivation to allow freedom to exist in other areas Westcountryman.
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