John Michael Greer has some interesting thoughts on whether the internet in its present form is sustainable over the long term:
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.ca/2015/04/the-death-of-internet-pre-mortem.html
A thought-provoking article with unusually civilized comments!
I haven't read the article yet, but I wanted to comment on something beforehand. It may be covered in the article, maybe not ---but it's been bugging me. Lately, I'm feeling more and more that G is making moves away from the 'traditional' internet. Some, like Fi, just don't seem to me to offer good monetization. Maybe I'm misjudging the revenue opportunities that will eventually arise or -more likely- just don't know enough about that line-of-business, but something feels ...off. I've tended to think it was either wall-building or diversification, but Debbie says
No.
<added>
OK, read it.
As a historian, I have to pipe up with an observation that may have occurred to some people all ready: the problem with predicting the future is that it hasn't happened yet.
Some good points in the article, but I feel like his whole argument rests on a narrow definition of the internet.
People say television is dying. But in point of fact, etymologically television means just means images sent at a distance over wires (like telegraph) or magically through the air (like telepathy). True, large networks with an infrastructure of stations and broadcast towers may disappear, but we're lately watching an Amazon series. The main difference being that they are not locked into each episode being the exact same length and fitting nicely into commercial breaks.
The way the data and services that flow around the internet may change, but the fundaments of it will last in some form.
There are few truly useful technologies that disappear entirely. The scratch stick gave way to the stick plow which gave way to the wheeled plow which gave way to giant tractors with disk harrows.... but the fundamental utility of a device to turn over the earth to make it more fruitful for seed persists...