Imagining the Next Net Part I

Its time for Predictions about the Future of the Internet again, thought it might be interesting / amusing to collect them all as they arrive. Here are Pew Internet's plus some comments.

1. The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020.

Note that a "mobile" in 2020 will not be what we mean by it today - that's 8 cycles of Moore's Law, so today's $500 laptop costs $5 and is the size of an iPod mini. Today's iPhone costs less than a buck and is a disposable item. However, unless we have new I/O devices, basic ergonomic limits for screen and keyboard sizes will keep primary 'Net connection devices above that size.

2. The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness.

Indeed - at the moment social media is in la-la land because most early adopters have fairly high integrity and tolerance, it has not yet grown to encompass the mass of humanity with all it, um, features. As Howard Rheingold observes on evidence to date - "Can anybody ..... actually bet anything meaningful on declining violence, sectarian strife, bigotry, and hate? Whatever the growth of the Internet has done, it certainly hasn't solved these age-old problems." Or, as another respondent put it "I live in a small town where everyone knows everyone else. This does not lead me to believe that knowing more about people makes you forgive them"

3. Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.

Touch probably - Voice recognition has been disappointing for the last 24 years, lets see where we are in the next 12. Not holding my breath though.........

4. Those working to enforce intellectual property law and copyright protection will remain in a continuing arms race, with the crackers who will find ways to copy and share content without payment.

Absolutely - though we would note that up till now the media content online has been "small beer" - the really big industry is video/TV/movies and they will be motivated to spend a lot more than Music/Audio has been able to afford or justify

5. The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.

In the survey, while some people are hopeful about a hyperconnected future , others expressed fears that mobility and ubiquity will be a burden in an always-on world that causes stress and the disintegration of family and social life and may also include oppressive surveillance by bosses and government. It will be interesting to see if we adapt social norms to these intrusive devices, and start to take back some of our own time. Or will it be the opposite instead, for e.g. a large market in yard-long plastic penises so people can look like their Second-Life characters?

6. Next-generation engineering of the network to improve the current internet architecture is more likely than an effort to rebuild the architecture from scratch.

It is noticeable that countries that have government backed Internet buildouts (Japan, Korea etc) are more advance than "Rest of World". We expect that more governments will force national upgrades as it becomes clearer that the Net drives massive competitive advantage. Picture will thus be mixed. Also, as the whole planet gets online it may well be necessary to build a "NextNet" - but probably not by 2020