Exposing The Ugly Side Of The Internet

Let’s start with the basics - The Internet. What’s the first thing that pops up in your mind when you hear the word ‘Internet’? Some technical mumbo-jumbo perhaps? Or maybe something really rudimentary? Let your train of thoughts loose and come down to the most definitive yet basic definition of the Internet. It’s merely an inter-connection of servers. Servers that fetch you the information that you require. You hit a query in your browser, the query is processed on multiple servers before it is displayed on your screen. That’s the basic work-flow mechanism of the Internet.

Now, you must be wondering why are we defining something that’s so obvious in nature? Well, even though you think you KNOW the Internet, you probably don’t know its purpose. Everything has its purpose, same with the Internet but when you look at what it has become now to what it should have been, it’s unsettling, to say the least. This unsettling piece of information has remained elusive from the public eye till now. I believe it’s my mission to empower the people with the truth to make informed decisions accordingly. Because half-baked knowledge is dangerous, isn’t it?

As it stands, the water is murky. Let’s clear the waters and give you a brief understanding of the true purpose of the Internet with an analogy. For this, we need to take a refresher in history. As profusely hypothesized, the universe began with a big bang. Similarly, our beloved earth was all gas, dust, and rock before everything fused together to form a giant ball of mass. With this surreal creation came water and with water came the land. A place what early settlers called home. These hunters and gatherers, not bound by any laws or rules were free-spirited beings. But as the earth kept evolving, so did the human civilization. We evolved to be more dependent, resourceful and social. 

For a brief period of time, the human civilization lived in harmony but that did not last long. Soon this harmony was disturbed by the rise of kings and monarchs. A fascist rule that brought its evil upon the society. The greed for power drove the kings and the monarchs, conquering every piece of land. Soon enough, they established themselves as absolute authorities. Though there was resistance to this concept of surrendering power to a single individual, it was fruitless. And with the passage of time, the common folks alienated the notion of free-spirit and accepted their fate. But as the golden rule of nature says 'change is the only constant', this overall consolidation of power only led to their demise. Years later, a new concept of a republic was introduced to the world. And this is the world that we live in right now.

In a similar fashion, the Internet was born. A virtual world that went on to connect people like never before. A world that knew no time or boundaries was made with the intention to give everybody access to everything. A free marketplace for everyone. But unfortunately, just like our physical world, the digital world had its own dictators. Over time, they have crawled their way up the ladder and are now own for everything that’s on the Internet. You are at their mercy. You don’t own anything in this virtual world. You’ve been reduced to a mere spectator who only has access to his OWN stuff. 

Imagine an ideal day in your life. You leave your home, go to a Starbucks to get some coffee. Then you move on to work but you then it clicks that you need to collect your Grandpa’s blood report because he has been ill for a while now. So you take a detour to the hospital and get the reports. In the evening, your wife calls you up reminding you of your anniversary. So you decide to get some flowers for her and while you are at it you also decide to collect your passport photos. 

Now, let’s get some perspective on this. Imagine this same scenario in the virtual world. You go to Starbucks where you have ACCESS to your coffee. You quickly gulp down your coffee and leave the establishment as you cannot take it back with you. Again at the hospital, you have ACCESS to your Grandpa’s report but you cannot take it back with you. So you take a quick look at it and exit. In the evening, you ACCESS a nearby florist but since you cannot take it back home, you describe it to your wife. As for the photos, you ACCESS them to check if they are good and leave.

The key difference between the two scenarios is ownership. In the physical world, you have complete ownership of the items or services that you pay for unlike in the virtual world. In the virtual world, you do have access to your own items but do you really own it? Ask yourself this question the next time you open your email account. Pause and ponder if you really have absolute control over your email account or it's just a facade.