Imagine a country where only the rich have access to good healthcare. Or where only the top 1% of the population can obtain a quality education. Or where only the powerful have nutritious food and clean water. This used to be a reality in most of the world, and unfortunately, continues to be a reality for a significant part of the population. Today, we largely accept these commodities and facilities as basic parts of a meaningful life and demand that they be available to everyone — through social welfare, public services, and government regulation.
But what about the Internet? I understand that the Internet is not necessary for survival — but is it any more feasible without it to lead a fulfilling life, on the same footing as the rest of the world? Like other basic necessities, including education, mobility, or financial services, access to the Internet is a matter of access to opportunities. And yet, we accept that while other necessities should be part of the government’s responsibility, our expectations from the Internet seem to be irrationally lower.
The government may have succeeded in getting the Internet to us at low prices, but has it succeeded in ensuring fair access? Let me step back a little — when I mentioned basic necessities, I really meant basic necessities at a reasonable quality, because what are they even for otherwise? What we have is an Internet where the big and mighty corporations — both foreign and indigenous — have a monopoly on good services for which the price is our personal data and our freedom of thought.
The whole problem is that not enough of us care enough about our data and privacy on the Internet. We allow corporations to extract as much data as they can about our lifestyles, preferences, habits, insecurities, financials, and whatnot. We would hesitate to share such information with strangers on the sidewalk — but we have agreed to let corporations that time and again have proven to be untrustworthy, unreliable, and unethical, have access to our most private information and use this access to control our ideas and perceptions. And all of this happens under the long noses of our governments.
But how is this unfair? The resourceful can afford an internet that works for them in ways they can control.
- They can pay for reliable VPN services that do not log their data or share it with third parties.
- They can pay for premium subscriptions to everyday services that do not show them advertisements to influence their choices.
- They can pay for smartphones that do not spy on them.
- They can pay for email services that do not look at their emails.
- They can pay for cloud storage that does not look at their private photos.
- They can pay for premium caller ID services that keep their identity private.
This list goes on and on. Forget all of these — they can even buy and set up personal hardware to host their own services in a place with reliable power and internet connectivity. I can add more examples, but the bottom line is that those who can pay can choose to have an Internet that serves them. The rest of us who cannot afford thousands of dollars in subscriptions every year are left at the mercy of monopolies that do not care about us.
Should we not demand from our governments that there be public services on the Internet that are free and fair? Should we not demand from our governments that there be regulations on what information can be harvested from us, and how it can be used? Should we not demand from our governments that there be minimum standards for services that are available to us?
Unfortunately, this seems to be a lost cause. Government control of the Internet already sounds very, very scary — we know what can go wrong with that. But most, if not all, examples of what can go wrong have arisen from poor democracies. I imagine that, like how only strong democratic institutions can ensure fair distribution of other basic necessities, only solid democratic foundations can ensure such regulated and public access to the Internet. I don’t think we are at that stage yet in most parts of the world — but who knows, maybe we can still be hopeful and still demand it.