Is Net Neutrality on the up or down? Is DRM rising or falling? Is crypto being banned, or will it win, and if it does, will its major application be ransomware or revolution? Is the arc of history bending toward justice, or snapping abruptly and plummeting toward barbarism?
It's complicated.
A better world isn't a product, it's a process. The right question isn't, "Does the internet make us better or worse," its: "HOW DO WE MAKE AN INTERNET THAT MAKES THE WORLD BETTER?" We make the world better with code, sure, but also with conversations, with businesses, with lawsuits and with laws.
We don't know how to get to a better world, but we know which direction it's in, and we know how to hill-climb towards it. If we keep heading that way, we'll get somewhere. Somewhere good. Somewhere imperfect. Somewhere where improvement is possible.
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger - the co-editor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net) and the author of WALKAWAY, a novel for adults, a YA graphic novel called IN REAL LIFE, the nonfiction business book INFORMATION DOESN'T WANT TO BE FREE, and young adult novels like HOMELAND, PIRATE CINEMA and LITTLE BROTHER and novels for adults like RAPTURE OF THE NERDS and MAKERS. He works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, is a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles. @doctorow