<p dir="ltr">Thanks Joly for sharing this interesting article video.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The point raised by Geoff Houston about the concentration of power in the hands of some global intermediaries (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) is something I personally believe is the antithesis of the basics of decentralization upon which the Internet was built.</p>
<p dir="ltr">To bring the ownership of data and services from intermediaries to the end-user may require another disruptive technology that would make it possible to democratize the process.</p>
<p dir="ltr">While I don't know what that technology is for sure, I personally think that the blockchain and smart contracts are one thing that is worth investigating. Read this useful article by Hicham Ezzahid on this matter:</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://medium.com/@e_hicham/blockchain-and-smart-contracts-will-eat-online-marketplaces-ce86c56e62c0">https://medium.com/@e_hicham/blockchain-and-smart-contracts-will-eat-online-marketplaces-ce86c56e62c0</a></p>
<p dir="ltr">As the ISOC Blockchain SME, I'll be at the IEEE Blockchain Summit in Vancouver on April 4 to bring up those thoughts for discussion. I've been studying this area for a while and would welcome your thoughts and how/if the blockchain technology and smart contracts could be connected to our work as ISOC.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Just like the Internet founders did, thinking outside the box is sometimes necessary to bring radical change on a global level. The Blockchain SIG that was recently approved by ISOC is trying to study if this technology has some promise in answering some of the challenges faced by the Internet today. So at least there is some effort done by ISOC and its community to look into different things that may help address those critical questions about the present and future of the Internet.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Best</p>
<p dir="ltr">Walid Al-Saqaf<br>
ISOC Trustee</p>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mar 17, 2017 11:26, "Joly MacFie" <<a href="mailto:joly@punkcast.com">joly@punkcast.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">To my own credit. I actually raised the 'content castles' issue with the Dynamic Coalition on Core Internet Values way back in 2012 at the Azerbaijan IGF. <a href="https://youtu.be/Je36zEtQSvk?t=2811" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/<wbr>Je36zEtQSvk?t=2811</a> Unfortunately I did not get much of a response.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br><br><u></u><div class="m_-2573892330346953484gmail-m_-8956896228422798198subscription-body-tag"><table style="width:100%;background-color:#dddddd" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><tbody><tr><td><span style="display:none"> joly posted: "At the recent APRICOT Conference in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Geoff Huston, Chief Scientist at APNIC, gave a rather dystopian view of the Internet's future, referring to the current period as a "gilded age" - a late 19th century trope, coined by Mark Twa" </span><table class="m_-2573892330346953484gmail-m_-8956896228422798198subscribe-body" style="width:100%;padding:10px" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td><div style="direction:ltr;max-width:600px;margin:0px auto;overflow:hidden"><table class="m_-2573892330346953484gmail-m_-8956896228422798198subscribe-wrapper" style="width:100%;background-color:#ffffff;text-align:left;max-width:1024px;min-width:320px;margin:0px auto" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#ffffff"><tbody><tr><td><table class="m_-2573892330346953484gmail-m_-8956896228422798198subscribe-header-wrap" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td> </td></tr></tbody></table><br><table style="width:100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="20" bgcolor="#ffffff"><tbody><tr><td><table style="width:100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td class="m_-2573892330346953484gmail-m_-8956896228422798198the-post" valign="top"><div class="m_-2573892330346953484gmail-m_-8956896228422798198post-content" style="direction:ltr;margin-top:1em;max-width:560px"><p style="direction:ltr;font-size:14px;line-height:1.4em;color:#444444;font-family:'helvetica neue',helvetica,arial,sans-serif;margin:0px 0px 1em">At the recent <strong><a style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2" href="https://2017.apricot.net/" target="_blank">APRICOT Conference</a></strong> in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, <strong>Geoff Huston</strong>, Chief Scientist at APNIC, gave a rather dystopian view of the Internet's future, referring to the current period as a "<strong><a style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age" target="_blank">gilded age</a></strong>" - a late 19th century trope, coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, that described the rise of an oligarchic veneer that masked underlying social malaise. What provokes Huston is after the Internet disrupted the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), it is now in danger of being disrupted itself. The rise consolidation of ubiquitous major Content Delivery Network nodes connected via private networks, is 1) belaying the need for, and thus investment in, global Open Internet infrastructure, and also 2) removing all options for public oversight of these networks. His closely argued views are well summarized by <strong>Don Dambandaraska</strong> in <strong><a style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2" href="https://disruptive.asia/transit-dead-content-literally-rules/" target="_blank">this news story</a></strong>, and are expounded on at length by Huston himself in a <strong><a style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2" href="http://www.circleid.com/posts/20170311_the_internet_gilded_age/" target="_blank">Circle ID post</a></strong>, and expressed succinctly in the video interview below.</p><p style="direction:ltr;font-size:14px;line-height:1.4em;color:#444444;font-family:'helvetica neue',helvetica,arial,sans-serif;margin:0px 0px 1em"><strong>View on YouTube</strong>: <a style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2" href="https://youtu.be/447HL2ePPBU" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/447HL2ePPBU</a></p></div><p class="m_-2573892330346953484gmail-m_-8956896228422798198subscribe-action-links" style="direction:ltr;line-height:1.4em;font-family:'helvetica neue',helvetica,arial,sans-serif;margin:0px;font-size:14px;color:#666666;padding:1em 0px 0em;width:auto"> </p><table class="m_-2573892330346953484gmail-m_-8956896228422798198auto-width" style="width:auto" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td style="width:10px"><a style="border-radius:10em;border:1px solid #11729e;text-decoration:none;color:#ffffff;background-color:#2585b2;padding:5px 15px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.4em;font-family:'helvetica neue',helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:normal;margin-left:0px;white-space:nowrap" href="http://isoc-ny.org/p2/9067#respond" target="_blank">Comment</a></td><td> <a class="m_-2573892330346953484gmail-m_-8956896228422798198subscribe-action-link" style="color:#2585b2;text-decoration:underline" href="http://isoc-ny.org/p2/9067#comments" target="_blank">See all comments</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="m_-2573892330346953484gmail-m_-8956896228422798198subscribe-wrapper-sub" style="width:100%;background-color:#efefef;text-align:left;border-top:1px solid #dddddd" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="20" bgcolor="#efefef"><tbody><tr><td class="m_-2573892330346953484gmail-m_-8956896228422798198subscribe-content" style="border-top:1px solid #f3f3f3;color:#888888;font-family:'helvetica neue',helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;background-color:#efefef"><p style="direction:ltr;color:#444444;font-family:'helvetica neue',helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:12px;line-height:1.4em;margin:0px 0px 10px"> </p><p style="direction:ltr;color:#444444;font-family:'helvetica neue',helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:12px;line-height:1.4em;margin:0px"> </p><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small;display:inline"><strong>Permalink</strong></div><br> <a style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2" href="http://isoc-ny.org/p2/9067" target="_blank">http://isoc-ny.org/p2/9067</a><p> </p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="m_-2573892330346953484gmail-m_-8956896228422798198subscribe-footer-wrap" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td> </td></tr></tbody></table></div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><img src="http://pixel.wp.com/b.gif?blog=10787942&post=9067&subd=isoc-ny.org&ref=&email=1&email_o=jetpack&host=jetpack.wordpress.com" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0"></div></div><div><br><br></div><div> </div><div> </div><div class="m_-2573892330346953484gmail_signature"> </div></div><br clear="all"></div><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="m_-2573892330346953484gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>------------------------------<wbr>------------------------------<wbr>---<br><span>Joly MacFie <span title="Call with Google Voice"><span id="m_-2573892330346953484gc-number-20" class="m_-2573892330346953484gc-cs-link" title="Call with Google Voice">218 565 9365</span></span> Skype:punkcast</span><br>------------------------------<wbr>------------------------------<wbr>--<br>-</div></div></div>
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