Technology by itself is meaningless; it is the capabilities provided by technology that make a difference. The capability provided by the TCP/IP inter-network is "connection". I have the capability to establish a TCP session with any IP on the worldwide network without asking permission from a central authority. That is why all of the authority structures of society feel threatened by the Internet and have been working round the clock—while we play Farmville and watch YouTube—to hobble its potential and redirect its technology from freedom to control.
Think of every, single power structure in society. At the top, you will find the distributors, the middle-men. I think it is one of history's greatest scams, the ultimate pyramid scheme, that they were able to insert themselves into this position. Ask any highwayman-turned-robber baron and of course they will want to talk of how necessary they are to the transfer of goods and services. But how is it that the person who facilitates the transfer of goods is more important and better compensated than either the producer or the consumer of those goods? This observation also extends to government. I don't refer to any particular government, but to the very notion of a governing body. Are they not the middle-men in the contract of society, facilitating the transfer of its benefits among its members?
Whatever the role of the middle-men in the past, the idea of the Internet has within it the potential to make them completely obsolete. I no longer need the RIAA in order to have access to a wide selection of music. Moreover, if the RIAA didn't exist I would have access to no less music than I do now. Representative government was a compromise accepted during an age when a full gathering of society's members would not have been feasible and free communication would not have been possible. Just as a foreign body triggers an immune system response, the capability of direct connection is an existential threat to the middle-men and they are trying to kill it. The ability to connect directly means I don't need to pay someone for the privilege. The ability to connect directly means that We The People have new possibilities for how we might provide for our future security, possibilities for greater freedom as a society that didn't exist before. That's why we're seeing the governing bodies issuing edict after edict, limiting what can be done with OUR! technology, negating the existence of the technology by prohibiting the capabilities it provides, so they can keep things as they have been. I'm trying to look at the long term direction of technology and I don't see greater freedom, I see greater control and I see that it's too late to do anything about it. In our consumer-based economy, the only private action we are permitted is to vote with our dollars. Are any of us willing, or even able, to choose to not use the Internet?
The Internet was only ever a dream. Now it is just the Net and we are all caught in it.