2012: The Year The Internet Ends

"Internet providers have realized that the only way to not lose massive amounts of customers over [Internet balkanization] is to make sure there are no alternatives"<p>Or compete by offering full access for a low price, a bit like right now. Bad argument.

Let's give these guys the benefit of the doubt. Let's go ahead and assume that what they claim is going to happen. Let's look at what is necessary for that to happen:<p>1: Bandwidth providers will discover that their costs are rising (thanks to that evil Google machine).<p>2: and so they consider throttling or otherwise restricting access to various high bandwidth sites (Keep in mind that Google and other high bandwidth sites pay these companies for their end of the bandwidth usage).<p>2b: We'll assume that for whatever reason, the bandwidth providers don't mind the loss of their biggest customers. We'll also assume that regular users don't mind the fact that their favorite search engine, social networking site, and torrent sites are unavailable.<p>3: For step 2 to occur as planned, all (or most) bandwidth providers will have to collude to make this a simultaneous change, and to agree not to go back and un-restrict the access to steal customers (here is where you should read up on the Prisoner's dilemma <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma</a>)<p>The market alternative to this is to simply raise prices on the bandwidth hogs and charge maybe on a per GB basis. While I don't like that idea (I do use a lot of bandwidth), I doubt that our bandwidth supply is anywhere near to its full capacity, or that bandwidth costs to suppliers are going to go anywhere but down, as all technology has pretty much ever since the inception of the microchip.

This will never happen and here is why: the more companies sign onto an agreement like this, the greater the economic incentive for the remaining companies to not sign.<p>The scheme would depend on every company signing and yet economics makes that a near impossibility.<p>I doubt very much that companies such as Youtube, google or Facebook would allow ISPs to effectively 'block' them without some legal challenges.<p>Add to that the first amendment lawsuits that are sure to crop up en mass and I think we can put the likelihood of this happen down to near-zero.

Wouldn't this fly in the face of common carrier regulations and subject the telecoms to massive taxes/fees/penalties and congressional litigation for stymieing small IT/software businesses? The government would probably put a stop to this, if only for the purpose of competing economically against China/other countries (I'm talking about the US here). We'd be at a severe technological disadvantage, lose potential taxes on new business, and go against all of wall-street (internet ipo's would essentially cease).

They need some pictures of tin-foil hats around the borders of their main &#60;div&#62;.

Sensational title. Check.<p>Misleading title. Check.<p>Wild speculation. Check.<p>Lack of references. Check.<p>Ignoring all the data right in front of us. Check.<p>Activist call to action. Check.<p>Reddit, Digg, or National Enquirier. No Check.<p>Hacker News. Check.<p>Just "checking".

In the 1980s, there were a bunch of online service providers like AOL and CompuServe that only allowed their customers to contact one another and only access services that those companies were hosting. All these companies (well, the ones that haven't gone out of business) have given up on the "walled garden" model of online access and let their customers use the real Internet.<p>Why will consumers in 2012 settle for any more restricted Internet access than consumers did in 2002?

December 22nd, 2012 is the day the day the Aliens come and the whole world ends - I think the internet is the least of our worries. Hopefully Mulder has a plan.

Did anyone watch the video?<p>I'm just saying ;)

<i>pat on the back for these guys</i><p>are they belgian?

i am just laughing!<p>even if that speculation was true? you trully expect actually Google will allow this to happen?!<p>except that everyone will be running their own server by then! the Internet is only becoming more open. The rest is rindicilus fantasy.<p>the only thing i see happening by then is the cloud becoming a more user/consumer friendly concept/product, and ISPs grasping that concept and providing it.<p>therefore the only thing ISPs that are going to do is give cloud services to people.