Cory Doctorow has a prescient talk: "The coming war on general computation" from 2011 (12 years ago) in which he argues that all general computing platforms (OS, phone OS, browser) would face challenges by governments and corporations. This looks like another way to control content distribution and put more control in Google's hands. They've made a great strategic choice in building Chrome browser and effectively superseded Microsoft and Apple on desktops as a platform.
The talk can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg
When people have means to consume or produce content without control any governmental bureaucrat will try to control this activity. History supports this argument.
No printing press > no cheap books > illiterate population > easy to control what spreads as information and what do not.
Printing press arrived > cheap books > growing literacy > control over the presses.
Lenin's first targets were the post/telegraph (communication), bridges and railways (movement of people) and all big printing houses (Lenin's Full Collected works - vol. 32, page 282)
Radio arrived > Fixed Frequencies Radio sets sold & Governmental Radio jamming stations
TV > Licence to broadcast
Internet > Big Firewall of China & etc...
And don't even think about moving money freely as experienced by requirement to show why are you paying someone and those nice people from bank compliance departments.
The cost of enforcement in digital economy is way cheaper than before. The tools are there or can be built cheaply and sadly they're only built one way, from the government to the people. Open governmental data and strong society control over governmental actions is almost non-existent. "Brave new world" is here.
There should be a way to support important open-source projects with fundraising drives for features and etc ... Open source is one of the very few ways to sustain important digital freedoms.
The talk can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg
When people have means to consume or produce content without control any governmental bureaucrat will try to control this activity. History supports this argument.
No printing press > no cheap books > illiterate population > easy to control what spreads as information and what do not.
Printing press arrived > cheap books > growing literacy > control over the presses. Lenin's first targets were the post/telegraph (communication), bridges and railways (movement of people) and all big printing houses (Lenin's Full Collected works - vol. 32, page 282)
Radio arrived > Fixed Frequencies Radio sets sold & Governmental Radio jamming stations
TV > Licence to broadcast
Internet > Big Firewall of China & etc...
And don't even think about moving money freely as experienced by requirement to show why are you paying someone and those nice people from bank compliance departments.
The cost of enforcement in digital economy is way cheaper than before. The tools are there or can be built cheaply and sadly they're only built one way, from the government to the people. Open governmental data and strong society control over governmental actions is almost non-existent. "Brave new world" is here.
There should be a way to support important open-source projects with fundraising drives for features and etc ... Open source is one of the very few ways to sustain important digital freedoms.