The current state of the internet

Beyond Network Feudalism | John Hanacek

Our civilization has a new reality. Computers meshed together by digital
networks have transcended the system that built them becoming a new
reality, a place where duplicating and moving information has near zero
marginal cost. This alone has changed the nature of the world; we have a
virtual playground where the reality of scarcity we have known and
endured is largely gone.  The Internet that appears distributed is fundamentally centralized.
Right now there are key players that sit atop the largest networks
reaping all the financial rewards.



Data is emerging as the new "oil," the new resource, the ultimate
distillation of all civilization into an exponential pool of zeros and
ones. Already the global economy is built from networks and powered by
data. Economic value on Earth is steadily being digitized; "currency"
was long ago. As we envelop the world in a unified Internet framework we
are facing a dark truth: in a world of free-flowing data, the biggest
computer wins.