Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet
I find this post quite disappointing. I don't mean to come off harsh but it is quite naive and utopian and I cannot take the call to arms seriously. Saying the internet went wrong is like saying the invention of cars went wrong cause we still have car accidents. For every powerful force in the world, it will be a source of good and bad things. The internet has changed the world, increased communication, allowed people in New York to learn and communicate with people in Egypt. Share stories, cultures, solve problems. A person in Nigeria can teach themselves Hindu, just from pure curiosity and no budget. No publisher needs to approve a book to be published or where it will be sold. We can make phone calls for free at any point in the day. We have Wikipedia, which for free provides more information than any human can process in their lifetime. For everyone who has access to the internet, the bulk of the world knowledge has been democratized and made accessible and something went wrong? Do terrorists use the internet? sure! Has consumerism hijacked parts of the internet? Sure! but these things are only symptoms of how powerful this tool is. Should we try to control and fix these problems of course! But for someone who created something so powerful, I am a bit disappointed at the negative tone of this post on the 50th anniversary of the first message.