Foretold by History - Draft

“This time is different: with everything on one network, the potential power to control is so much greater” (318).

            If you type in Yahoo.com or Google.com and press enter, the Internet opens up before you. Suddenly, this world founded on the principle of net neutrality abdicates control to the individual. In The Master Switch, Tim Wu, creator of the term “net neutrality,” discusses the power of potential monopolies such as, Google or Apple, and the threat they pose to the future neutrality of the Internet. Wu fearfully claims that “the future of Apple and Google will form the future of America and the world” (Wu 273) because these companies will continue to determine how Americans and the rest of the world share information. In contrast, William Gibson in Neuromancer envisions the “consensual hallucination” (Gibson 5) of cyberspace as a habitable place, with all the world’s data represented as visual, even palpable structures arranged in a matrix. He depicted a world where the individual could be more powerful than monopolies. Who is right? I believe that Wu's prediction of Google or Apple's destruction of net neutrality is more likely to occur than Gibson's prediction of a future "consensual hallucination." 

            Wu's fear that the power of Google and Apple, coupled with the design of the Internet could end net neutrality in the future is valid. The Internet is “an actual physical entity that can be warped or broken…it has always depended on a finite number of physical connections, whether wired or spectral, and switches, operated by a finite number of firms upon whose good behavior the whole thing depends” (Wu 317). Thus, there is a risk of losing the Internet’s diversity of content and services because it is vulnerable to centralization by a powerful firm, and Google and Apple are examples of dominant firms that just might have that power. Wu considers Google to be “the world’s most popular Internet switch, and as such, it might even be described as the current custodian of the Master Switch” (Wu 279). In Siva Vaidhyanathan’s Googlization of Everything, he claims that “we allow Google to determine what is important, relevant, and true…whatever shows up on the first page of a Google search is what matters in forming our sense of any reality” (Wu 281). In addition, Google qualifies as a monopoly because its market share of the search business is over 65 percent (Wu 281). Fortunately, Google currently operates as an open information system, providing customers with choice and freedom. However, given that the company is public and must answer to its shareholders, Google will most likely act in its best economic interest. If centralizing the Internet will enable Google to maximize its profit or eliminate competition, it will be done.

            Similar to Google, Apple is a large, powerful company that could destroy net neutrality by monopolizing the Internet. The App Store enables Apple to decide what content is available to consumers on the iPhone, the iPad, and the iTouch. Also, Apple could eventually control the content consumers have access to online. Tom Conlon of Popular Science declared, “once we replace the personal computer with a closed-platform device such as the iPad, we replace freedom, choice and the free market with oppression, censorship and monopoly” (Wu 293). As Wu describes, “net neutrality is what prevents the telephone and cable industry from killing Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, blogs…” (Wu 286) as well as Google from destroying Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines. Net neutrality enables the Internet to operate in today’s fashion and it is essential to the prevention of Wu's feared future. Wu concludes The Master Switch with “The Separations Principle,” which proposes a constitutional approach to the information economy where all power that derives from the control of information is constrained and divided in order to avoid “the imminent perils of a closed system” (Wu 316). Wu’s principle promotes net neutrality as it relies on “cultivation of a popular ethic concerning our society’s relation to information…a strong general conviction that it is wrong to block sites on the Internet” (Wu 316).

            If Wu's fear that net neutrality may end seems imminent, in contrast, Gibson's prediction of "consensual hallucination" seems light years away. However, let it be said that some of Gibson's predictions in Neuromancer have come true. For example, Gibson’s networked artificial matrix of cyberspace has come to represent everything from computers and information technology to the Internet. In addition, Neuromancer may have directly influenced the way in which the World Wide Web developed as Gibson introduced the idea of a global network of millions of computers. He envisioned cyberspace as a habitable place, allowing people to “jack in” to a 3-D world using electrodes and neural interfaces. Cyberspace as a habitable place may be far-fetched; however, research has shown that Gibson’s concept of “jacking in” may evolve in the near future. “Researchers at Brown University have used a tiny array of electrodes to record, interpret, and reconstruct the brain activity that controls hand movement – and they have demonstrated that thoughts alone can move a cursor across a computer screen to hit a target” (Researchers Demonstrate Direct, Real-Time Brain Control of Computer Cursor). Even so, the virtual worlds that we have today do not even remotely compare to the “consensual hallucination” of cyberspace that Gibson envisioned. He created the Simstim, a sensory experience where one person can view the world through another’s eyes as well as the Construct, which is the recording and preserving a person’s consciousness. The Simstim and Constructs seem to be unlikely future-tense technologies in contrast to Wu’s predicted future involving the potential end of net neutrality.

            How big a threat does Wu feel the centralization of the Internet poses? Enough of a threat that he has joined the Federal Government in an effort to protect net neutrality. The Federal Trade Commission recently named Tim Wu “a senior advisor for consumer protection and competition issues that affect the Internet and mobile phones” (Tim Wu, Creator of the Term ‘Net Neutrality,’ Joins the Federal Government). Wu strongly believes in the importance of consumers having unregulated access to all Internet content and he will work with the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Policy Planning later this month to assist with “‘long-range competition and consumer protection policy initiatives’” (Tim Wu, Creator of the Term ‘Net Neutrality,’ Joins the Federal Government) related to technology. As earlier discussed, Wu fears the possibility of AT&T, Apple, or Verizon controlling the Internet in the near future and influencing the content consumers can access online. Why is this fear rational? In The Master Switch, Wu describes the history of information industries in which corporations successfully monopolized a particular industry. Essentiall, Wu believes that history has foretold the eventual attempt to centralize the Internet. The Internet “naturally harnesses the power of decentralization and defies central control, but in the face of a determined power, that design alone is no adequate defense of what we hold most dear about the network” (Wu 317).
            In addition, Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts supports net neutrality given that the Internet revolution of the past twenty-five years has created millions of jobs and new industries. The freedom and openness of the Internet enables businesses to evolve and compete as e-commerce has grown over four hundred percent in ten years. Congressman Markey stated, “if we make certain that the Internet remains an unfettered platform for competition, creativity and entrepreneurial activity, we can ensure that consumers benefit and competition, innovation and investment continue to flourish” (The Importance of Net Neutrality).

            As Tim Wu and others fight in favor of net neutrality, Verizon has issued a challenge to the Federal Communications Commission’s net-neutrality policy. Verizon is concerned with the FCC’s assertion of authority for new regulation of broadband networks and the Internet itself. Last year, the FCC lost when Comcast challenged a net-neutrality fine. Hopefully, the FCC has found a stronger legal basis for its policy and will be able to enforce net neutrality. Otherwise, Wu’s fear of a future where corporations control the Internet and its content may soon become a reality.

Works Cited:

Bilton, Nick. "Tim Wu, Creator of the Term 'Net Neutrality,' Joins the Federal Government.” The New York Times 2011. The New York Times. Web.

Brown University. "Researchers Demonstrate Direct, Real-Time Brain Control Of Computer Cursor. Science Daily 2004. Science Daily. Web. 

Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York: Ace, 1984. Print. 

Markey, Representative Ed. "The Importance of Net Neutrality." POLITICO 2010. POLITICO. Web.

Wu, Tim. The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. New York: Knopf, 2010. Print.