Slashdot Mirror
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt Predicts the Internet Will Split in Two By 2028 -- and One Part Will Be Led By China (yahoo.com)
Speaking at a private event in San Francisco this week, Eric Schmidt said he believes within the next decade there will be two distinct internets: one led by the U.S. and the other by China. At the event, economist Tyler Cowen asked, "What are the chances that the internet fragments over the years?" To which former Google CEO said: I think the most likely scenario now is not a splintering, but rather a bifurcation into a Chinese-led internet and a non-Chinese internet led by America. If you look at China, and I was just there, the scale of the companies that are being built, the services being built, the wealth that is being created is phenomenal. Chinese Internet is a greater percentage of the GDP of China, which is a big number, than the same percentage of the US, which is also a big number. If you think of China as like 'Oh yeah, they're good with the Internet,' you're missing the point.
Globalization means that they get to play too. I think you're going to see fantastic leadership in products and services from China. There's a real danger that along with those products and services comes a different leadership regime from government, with censorship, controls, etc. Look at the way BRI works -- their Belt and Road Initiative, which involves 60-ish countries -- it's perfectly possible those countries will begin to take on the infrastructure that China has with some loss of freedom.
Globalization means that they get to play too. I think you're going to see fantastic leadership in products and services from China. There's a real danger that along with those products and services comes a different leadership regime from government, with censorship, controls, etc. Look at the way BRI works -- their Belt and Road Initiative, which involves 60-ish countries -- it's perfectly possible those countries will begin to take on the infrastructure that China has with some loss of freedom.
How big we'll likely never know since China's government statistics are about as reliable as their Happy Meal toys.
Bullshit
In a decade you won't even have to be on the "web proper" to be networked in.
Once you get proper Web 3.0 decentralized networks running - like the Akasha beta you don't need web proper. All you need to be is attached to another node, even without web-proper access and you can communicate anywhere. I hope to see neighborhood mesh networks be it WiFi or cable-over-the-fence networks, as long as you've got a machine or two somewhere connected to the web then you've got worldwide communication going. Once we figure out how to make IPFS have some reasonable naming systems the old-school web will matter less and less.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
to avoid Governments/Companies censorships (Google already started to censor everything...)...
The whole Belt and Road initiative is running into some problems, receiving a lot of pushback from many countries that are realizing it's no picnic to be controlled by China.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
With all the content filtering, it may as well be its own self-contained network. The rest of the world doesn't want to use it, and Chinese citizens are stuck with it.
... hit you in the ass on the way to your fully firewalled future. They are 90% there already. This reminds me. We geeks need to find some type of new network outside of the corporate internet. The wingtips have mostly ruined it and turned it into a giant strip mall. However, say for example there was a grassroots nationwide wifi network, the FCC would come along and ban it. That or the wingtips would figure out how to buy it and ruin that, too. Ugh. It's hard to escape the suit weasels.
We should cut off China, and all other evil dictatorships, from the internet now. If they can't stop murdering people that disagree with them, they do not deserve to be part of the civilized world.
When it pops it’s Japan’s lost decade times 10. All the garbage real estate. All the rich owning 10 apartments while 90% own nothing. All the shit build quality. My wife is chinese, I’ve been to lower tier cities where I’m the only white guy in 100 miles. There is some really shocking shit there.
Oh wait. My bad.
You note that he said the Chinese internet versus the American internet, which is arguable but probably effectively true. That's two (big) countries that comprise about 25% of the world's population. The rest of the world has to decide what to do.
China is obvious: don't insult pooh bear, don't contradict the government, don't stir up dissent, don't rock the boat, be good happy citizen in harmonious society. America lets you say anything you want: but don't fuck with corporate interests particularly with IP, you will be thrown in jail just as quickly.
So the question is what does the the remaining 75% of the world use? They will probably pick and choose. They will probably get their entertainment and software from the Chinese internet. They will probably get their social, and their porn from the "American" internet. The question is where will they get their drugs and mutually agreed upon contraband...
I fear for the worst. There's a lot of flippant accusations about surveilance and censorship of the rest of the world in the Chinese internet, but more than anything it's about keeping America's slimy, spying, sabotaging tentacles out of there, which is sensible.
The problem with America is that they're growing increasingly paranoid and consider all the other countries to be enemies, and have even committed hostile actions, subversion and sabotage against European networks, of everything. Chine on the other hand done or stated anything to that extent, and always said that cooperation is the only way forward.
Worth taking into account when you consider what side you'd like to be on.
Isn't this what led to their technological stagnation in the first place, causing them to play catch up by stealing everyone's IP?
It'll be the same thing with their internet here in 20 years.
That's not predicting. That's observing what is actually happening already. As the Great Firewall of China gets more and more strict this becomes more and more true.
a bifurcation into a Chinese-led internet and a non-Chinese internet led by America.
I can't see that happening as all the equipment used to connect to the internet comes from China. If they make it, they can hard-wire it to work with whatever version of the intenet they please. It is the tech / manufacturing equivalent of having the intenet by the balls. I must assume that when the times comes that the chinese want to assume authority of the intenet, they will just take it.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
China wants to exclude itself from the internet and have essentially its own version of the internet where everything their politicians disagree with is deleted --- that's not splitting the internet though: that's islanding China from the rest of the world: that's damage. As we well know, the Internet wants to re-route around such damage.
There's nothing in here about the Internet "splitting". All it amounts to is that China is already using the Internet a lot and most Americans know nothing about it because they can't read Chinese. They are going to use their own sites and services instead of running to use companies like Google.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
So you are telling me that China has enough porn for a whole other internet?
FTFY
If you think of China as like 'Oh yeah, they're not a Nazi super-state so it's okay to trade with them,' you're missing the point.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The core premise of this commentary seems to be that China hasn't basically already created the theorized divide between their "internet" and the rest of the world. I'm not so sure that people operating from behind The Great Firewall would entirely agree with that premise.
Mostly because those that can influence it pretty much want the Chinese Variant of the Internet, a network, controlled by the government and built for the benefit of the industry.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You've never been to a shitty American city have you? Did you get mugged in the Chinese city or were they all civilized?
How many Americans own apartments/houses?
Here's a cluewho's 90% and who's 65%
I got so sick of Chinese spam that I blocked the entire country from reaching my DNS servers. No China = no loss for me.
The apostrophe was inappropriate.
It is expensive to build brick/mortar from which to sell. OTOH, selling via internet is dirt cheap. The west is still locked into mentality that distributors and/or box stores are main sources. IOW, we are throwing our money away on middle men. Then add in the fact that china pays less to mail small items to most other nations, than a developed nation pays to mail in their own city. China will want control as trump/GOP try to stop china from being unfair, but offhand, I think trump is being just as unfair as china.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Looking at the activity logs of my servers that have public IPv4 addresses, all the traffic I get already from China is spam, bot scans of web pages, and constant port scanning and SSH dictionary attacks.
On top of that, I am pretty much 100% certain that if I put up a web page of interest to Chinese in China and it got popular and the government of China didn't like then nobody there would be able to see it anymore.
If the Internet did bifurcate as Schmidt says, what would be so different?
Drugs will be from the local country, just like now.
There will still be servers in other countries.
I understand that things needs to be dumbed down, but only two networks? Sure. What about the Ruskies? And if 2 are possible, I am sure the EU will be able to have one as well.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
China has many, many problems it is facing.
More problems than the US.
For as much power, wealth and influence they have at the moment, their window of opportunity for world domination, eg, "The Chinese Century" is rapidly closing and they know it.
The reason Xi is tightening control is because he knows the people of China are sick of the CCP and the corruption, etc;
Also, as others have pointed out, the BRI is having problems also. Those who have signed onto it are now seeing the error of their ways and that they are now beholden to China. The beginning of the backlash to Chinese influence is what we are seeing.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
"There's a real danger that along with those products and services comes a different leadership regime from government, with censorship, controls, etc. Look at the way BRI works"
Says the man from the company that works with communist China as well as censors political material in the West too.
There are domains within China which are not resolvable outside, with Chinese .tlds.
Because the only way we will get an international network mostly free from government interference is for tens or hundreds of thousands of us to leave the continents and create a worldwide mesh network across the sea. Once that is in place, rebellious types inside each coastal state, province, or nation can prepare an out of country link to one or more of our access points at sea, allowing them into an uncensored world spanning network.
This would not be a cheap operation and would require thousands of hard self-sufficient individuals, plus donations from 1st world mainlanders to keep the equipment updated and in good repair, but if you want a truly free internet it isn't going to happen with the primary infrastructure inside of corporate or authoritarian ruled national borders, unless the backbone is somewhere that makes it politically difficult for them to strike. Even then a strong navy will be needed in time to deter attacks and espionage on the network.
Give it some thought. The technology exists today, but the willpower and sacrifice of (wo)men to make it a reality is sorely lacking.
If anyone is interested in taking the steps required, reply back to this comment.
Our network isn't as important because we get double-billed for crap.
When your ISP and ATT throttle Netflix unless netflix pays them, they are really billing you twice. You pay Netflix.
It is a tax. It is a tax that reduces levels of value creation.
China doesn't have those and you do, American. Don't you feel lucky?
The "free" market poisoning itself with politics so the dictatorship creates more value?? Fail. Epic. Historic. History defining and catastrophic fail.
EngrStudent
Someone can invent a device that connects to BOTH the American Internet and the Chinese Internet, and routes traffic between the two, making them look one one big Internet.
Gonna be a lot of work though.
If you go on the Russki network you get pwned immediately. Nobody wants to risk that shit.
kewl story bra.
The dictatorship doesn't create more value. China has backed off from being a full dictatorship since the 1990s. If they continue to get stricter and stricter as it looks like Xi wants to do, then the ability to make money in China will diminish. Xi is between a rock and a hard place. If he puts the screws on the people will get poor. The only reason they haven't strung him up is because China let the people keep the benefits of their own labor to a much greater degree than before.
And even so, they *still* interfere with their people way more than our government does.
You know how often I hear from the feds? Never. I get a computer printout from my tax return once a year (if I file). Otherwise they leave me alone.
and data wants to be free.
Gut feeling says that SpaceLink will be doing just this.
Of course, Googleowns a chunk of it, and will likely own more before the first customers.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
relax.
Your angst is going to give you a fucking heart attack.
The best thing that can happen is for these companies to do this. SpaceLink is coming and will be coming in a BIG way.
Likewise, this will encourage local gov to build out fiber as a utility.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That would signal the end of the Internet, and begin the era of Walled_Gardens_2p0. Face it, we're almost there right now, globally-speaking.
I already block all chinese ip ranges. Why wait a decade? Do it now.
Look, there are other internets.
Faster ones.
Able to leap tall Gigabytes in a flash.
Just saying.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"There was the Chinese AM and the Russian AM and the
Yankee AM and everything was fine until they had honeycombed the entire planet, adding on
this element and that element. But one day AM woke up and knew who he was, and he linked
himself, and he began feeding all the killing data, until everyone was dead, except for the five of
us, and AM brought us down here."
--Harlan Ellison
They love censorship.
There is no such thing as globalization.
That term would imply that it was a two way street.
What is often called Globalization is just money and technology going from West to East.
He was hired help to scale up Google corporate, not some technology guru. Who gives a shit what he says?
American Internet = those services that the United States federal government hasn't blocked (and it has blocked some)
Chinese Internet = those services that the People's Republic of China central government hasn't blocked
X Internet = those services that X government hasn't blocked
We are there already.
Wake me when we take the Internet back from Google inc/Amazon inc/Nike inc/Etc inc.
This is totally bullshit. Here you can see what he knows about Internet. What did he do at Google, cleaning toilets or sitting in an office bullshitting over the phone?
I am all for an underground internet free from commercialism. No Spammers. Just used for data, and research.
Mmmm, communist plans! Good to see more communists on /.!
Tyler Cowen isn't an economist, simply a Koch brothers paid-stooge.
Sure, you can call him a pseudo-economist, but please never call him a real economist.
I don't foresee them going to the chinese internet for entertainment and software... except for pirated crap. Nobody in Hollywood or Silicon Valley will allow their official stuff on there, and if they were foolish enough to, they'd be booted for violating China's laws. For some reason most other countries, including China, get a complete get out of jail free card when it comes to protectionism. They practice it HEAVILY. The US is the only country not allowed to have limited immigration, trade agreements in their favor, and laws to protect their own jobs and businesses.
That's already happened.
The Chinese one is called "wechat", and nobody in the West uses it, because the TOS basically say that the Chinese Communist Party owns your soul, as well as all of your personal data and human rights. It's supposed to be super convenient, though. So they say. Has every feature you want. Except privacy.
The other one is called "the internet", and you can't really access most of it in China, because it's blocked. I mean, there are a few public-internet sites still reachable from China. Because they cooperate with the censorship. Baidu, for example. Taobao. But you can't use Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, or any other site that's major in the rest of the world. It's all blocked.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
The Chinese government has systematically banned or neutered almost every US website or website company that has won a sizeable chunk of market share in China.
At the same time, their policy on corporate ownership insures that the companies inside the great firewall are majority owned by the Chinese.
At the same time, large US companies outside of China are constantly faced by monopoly threats by the US government. They're also prevent from merging to create bigger companies. And they don't have the protection of the US goverment for the most part: they can be bought lock stock and barrel by the Chinese.
With a population that dwarves the US, Chinese companies will continue to grow larger and more powerful and will continue to snap up US companies. Their own internet will remain their own through protectionism. Startups will get purchased if they show any promise with the enormous cash reserves the chinese enjoy. And in the end there will only be ONE internet - the one owned by the Chinese. The US will be on the outside looking in.
The US will be a small confined internationally blocked subset of the World Wide Web.
All you will be able to get is evangelical sites, Fox-based-Facebook, Trump/twitter and fake news (flat earth, climate denial, science mocking). You will not be able to have a US based smartphone taken out of the country because the WALL will be a Faraday Cage and you will be given a body cavity search when crossing out of the country.
The US will be a heavily guarded Concentration Camp designed to keep white people in and everyone else out.
The best part of the Chinese internet is that all the content will be free, since ownership is an antiquated Western concept. No word on who will produce all the free content, by free is free, so stop complaining.
Are you claiming the Chinese Communist Party, doesn't control industry? Because thats laughable.
Where is the coal angle?
Your angst is going to give you a fucking heart attack.
Are you starting to take your own advice?
USA is 5% of world population.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+world+vs.+population+of+usa
The great firewall is becoming ever thicker. By the month.
For most Chinese, the outside internet will not exist in a few years. Nor need it. Lots of internal news and social media sites. The Chinese equivalent of StackExchange will be quite good enough. And a few carefully monitored Chinese will still have external access.
The famine was created by Chairman Mao, not natural elements. Google The Great Leap Forward. It was truly horrendous, for everyone that died there were hundreds that went desperately hungry. All completely unnecessary.
Mao's photo hangs proudly over Tiananmen square.
Lieberatian white nationalist white boys are buttmad that people of color are rising up against them and winning, LOL