The Battle for Power on the Internet
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/the_battle_for_1.html
A very interesting, if a bit long-ish (for the ‘net) article discussing the shifting power between the early Internet adopters and the johnny-come-lately corporate and government interests that are moving in now (well, have been for a decade). Since big bloated governments/corporations move slowly there exists a large window for small nimble ‘startups’ (be they hackers, actual business startups, Russian mafia, geopolitical agitators, etc.) to quickly adopt new technology. The Internet had a long period where the powers-that-be were too sluggish to react, now that period is over and those powers are now acting in their typical reactionary methods to bulldoze the ‘startups’. How this will turn out is hard to predict, though as a student of history I have to favor the oligarchy and give worse odds for the little guys. It is true that the Internet paradigm shifts power somewhat, diversifying leverage, but ultimately, as long as society at large attaches values to shiny tokens of metal (or their virtual equivalent, say in numbered Swiss bank accounts (do they still have those?)) it will be trivial for the oligarchy to purchase the required expertise (meaning they can always find ‘sellouts’ who will work for the highest bidder). If, on the other hand, we actually change the shiny tokens into pure virtual tokens there exists a window where the befuddled powers-that-be can be sidelined. I doubt that will work, particularly here in the good old USofA, as purt near _everyone_ here buys into the fantasy that they can become rich and thus don’t want to trade in the (infinitesimally small, yet still dramatically shrinking every day) chance to become rich by switching tokens they seek after.
