Twelve years ago, I wrote a book titled “A Beautiful Anarchy” in 2012, praising the development of the Internet since its inception. At that time, the Internet was largely operating in a decentralized manner, with businesses thriving in a spontaneous order.
The invention of the web browser occurred in 1995. Five years later, the bankruptcy of internet companies cleared the market frenzy and paved the way for more long-term projects. In 2005, the social media giant Facebook was opened to the public. In 2006, Google acquired the video-sharing platform YouTube. The iPhone by Apple was introduced in 2007. By 2008, various applications emerged rapidly.
By 2012, the cooperation between various digital platforms was significant, and advertisements hadn’t dominated major websites yet. For the vast users of these platforms, there were no monopolies among the millions of choices, only major industry participants. Competition existed in most fields. Social media and applications were experiencing a period of flourishing growth.
Everyone thought it would be chaotic, but it turned out to be orderly and beautiful, without top-down directives or centralized plans. That’s why I called it a beautiful anarchy.
In my book, I included extensive praise for social media sites, describing their roles in people’s lives and the contributions they made to making the world better.
My main theory was that the digital realm represented a new frontier, embodying the essence of the pioneering spirit that built the American West, nurturing generations of explorers, builders, entrepreneurs, and innovators.
However, we must now ask ourselves in 2024: What has happened since then?
My mistake back then was thinking that this newfound freedom would continue indefinitely without any changes. That prediction was completely off the mark, as it was based on the idea that nation-states would never do to the Internet what they had already done to the physical world. I believed that this new form of freedom would persist permanently, with the spirit of liberation growing.
Today, twelve years later, we are faced with a starkly different scenario. The traditional Internet once celebrated freedom and enshrined speech rights in law. However, the current Internet has been reimagined as a rule-based stakeholder model dominated by large corporations, governments, university partners, and major foundations.
This is the language used in the “Declaration for the Future of the Internet” jointly released by the United States and 60 global partners in 2022. In other words, the new Internet is entirely different from the old one. People now seek to further control this information system, making it operate mechanically, akin to the television of the past.
Around five years ago, when I became acutely aware of this shift, I found myself embarrassingly wrong. How could I extol the achievements and permanence of things that seemed fragile and contracting? The social media platforms I once vigorously praised had now become completely captured, censored, and mentally destructive to their addicted users.
Why didn’t I realize this problem back then?
Upon reflection, the more I pondered this question, the more grateful I felt for having written that book twelve years ago. It served as a valuable historical document, capturing the past and future of the Internet. I now view the book as a precious archive, proving that the first and second generations of great builders and achievers accomplished wonderful things without top-down dictates, censors, regulators, courts, and irresponsible fact-checking organizations.
Freedom worked. It allowed humans to access all the great literary works instantly, made film history searchable with a click, offered amazing new services like free internet calls and videos to the entire human race, and drastically reduced the cost of education and innovation.
At the time, I believed that when something functions so well, humanity would rally around it, protect it, replicate the model, and build the future upon it. I never substantiated this claim. I just assumed it was true.
While writing the book, some people did push back against my technological utopianism. An entrepreneur started a new email service promising not to provide backdoor access to any government agencies. Yet, he was informed that this was impossible. Rather than succumb, he chose to shut down his company.
His revelation to me was that the internet was not inherently free. With enough time, the internet could be cartelized and fully controlled. I had dismissed this possibility, believing that power wasn’t that clever and market participants’ spontaneous actions would prevail over external control. He was evidently right, and I was clearly wrong in all these aspects.
Examining the internet today reveals a stark contrast with the world of twelve years ago. Major portal websites are products jointly controlled by around five different companies. Areas like web searches are almost entirely monopolized. Search results are not generated based on crowdsourced credibility from diverse experiences but prioritized based on political agendas.
The app economy is also dominated by monopolists who secured prime real estate on smartphones through various deal-making methods that were not market exchanges but deals signed with government agencies, which have become their most influential clients. Gravity is shifting towards centralization, planning, and ultimately eliminating out-of-sync, anti-woke viewpoints.
With the establishment of fact-checking organizations, this tightening trend continues. They harass content providers, label them as fake, and downgrade them in search results. These organizations have diversified in multiple directions, even being used by large advertisers to choose their ad placements.
Elon Musk decided to steer Twitter (now renamed X platform) closer to the traditional internet rather than the new internet, resulting in a loss of billions of dollars. As he stated, the cost of free speech is immensely high. Indeed, that is the truth. In other words, advertising fees are used to restrict freedom, not expand it.
All these insights have given me much to contemplate. I once believed that the digital world was inherently free, that there could be no world more free than this. Now, I see something entirely different: governments and large private enterprises collaborating to greatly restrict freedom of speech and the free flow of information.
The lesson I’ve learned from these upheavals is that no technology is inherently immune from being used for corrupt purposes. The struggle for freedom lies not in technology but in philosophy and religion. That is the real fight.
Regarding my book, I once felt deeply embarrassed about it. Now, that embarrassment has dissipated. Today, I see it as a tribute to the past and perhaps an inspiration for what could potentially be recreated. If that indeed happens, let us remember next time: if we intend to preserve freedom, we must defend it.
About the author: Jeffrey A. Tucker is the founder and president of the Brownstone Institute based in Austin, Texas. He has published thousands of articles in academia and mainstream media, authored ten books in five languages, with the latest being “Liberty or Lockdown” in 2020. He also edited the book “The Best of Ludwig von Mises” in 2019. He regularly contributes to the Epoch Times writing economics columns on a wide range of topics including economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.