> The internet will be destroyed as countries the world over seek to impose all of their silly and incompatible laws on it.
> I'm happy to have known the true internet. Truly one of the wonders of humanity.
I'm old enough to have been around for the whole thing. I used to kind of share this view, but I don't anymore.
I think it's impossible to reconcile this point of view with the obvious observation that huge aspects of life have gotten really dramatically worse thanks to the internet and its related and successor technologies.
It has made people more addicted, more anxious, more divided, or confused. It has created massive concentrations of wealth and power that have a very damaging effect on society, and it is drastically reducing the ability of people to make decisions about how they want to live and how they want their society to be structured.
It's also done a tremendous amount of positive good, too, don't worry. It's obvious to me, like it should be obvious to any rational person, that there are huge benefits too. And of course, to some extent, there's a bit of inevitability to some parts of this.
While certainly there are examples of silly laws in the world, it's worth noting that that's the exception, not the rule. In general, laws are things that society does on purpose with the intent of making the world match its values.
I think countries should in fact be governed by the consent of their own citizens and by the rule of law. I welcome changes that make that more likely.
I also like Archive.today, and I hate paywalls, they're annoying. This may not be the best place to post my counterpoint, but I think it's worth mentioning and it doesn't get repeated enough.
I was around in the 90s, and I'm very familiar with the techno-utopian approach of the first internet generation. It failed.