I often tell people I am a Citizen of the World. That, even more so than identifying as an American, I identify as being a first generation Internetarian. From childhood, I had more international “online” friends whom I had never met in person, than I did in-person friends from my hometown. For years, I’ve watched the Internet foster cultural diffusion, bringing people together who may never have otherwise met. The Internet has served such a profound role in my life, that I now work at a non-profit called the Internet Archive where we preserve a backup of the entire public web (over 580 billion webpage captures and hundreds of millions of documents) to ensure the world’s people always have free, open access to all the information they have grown to rely on. Did I mention, we also run Open Library, a California State accredited public library which provides free, international access to over 3.8M blind-accessible digital books?
As an organization, we exist because we’ve seen how some of the world’s most important centers of knowledge and cultural exchange can burn overnight. As someone who has lived to seen hundreds of popular websites come and go — and policies change which conspire to make some documents harder to access— we’re constantly reminded how essential the Internet is as a foundation for our lives. I hope together we’re able to remind ourselves just how deeply indispensable the Internet is to us.
The Indispensable Internet
When I was a youth, I relied on the US Postal Service as a public utility for sending mail. Today, email and instant messaging enable me to communicate without days or weeks of latency. From my house in Connecticut, I used to dream of futuristic technology which would allow me to video call with my grandparents in California and Florida. Now, I rely on Google Voice, Skype, and Slack daily for making business meetings, doctors appointments, and checking-in with my family. The US Postal Service and Telephone services have long been protected as public utilities, recognized as essential services, that no wanting American should be without. But as the sustainability and practicality of these utilities are challenged by their Internet-powered replacements, one might wonder what guarantees we have that these news systems will be run as equitably? Let’s hold on to that thought.
In addition to traditional public utilities, the Internet has emerged as a center for numerous other critical day to day operations. Daily, I use Internet access to check my bank records, pay bills, organize my receipts, and pay taxes. I’ve run two small businesses which have relied on merchant systems like Paypal, Stripe, Square, and Google Wallet, in order to accept and make online payments. None of these merchant services have in-person customer centers and are only manageable online (or I suppose through automated phone services with often exorbitant wait times). It’s impractical to live in 2017 without making purchases online — 79% of Americans make purchases online. Over 10% of all U.S. retail is done online through Amazon.com. If that’s not enough and you’re looking for further ubiquity, 64% of households in the U.S. opt to pay $99/year for Amazon Prime accounts (that’s a cool $8B). If you don’t have Internet access, the same retail opportunities simply aren’t available to you.
Outside of retail and banking, the Internet is critical to of day-to-day operations tasks like searching for housing, jobs, doctors, child-care. In the past, when my housing situation became disrupted, I used craiglist to search for another apartment. Housing becomes occupied so rapidly in San Francisco that looking through a paper’s classifieds is of no real value. And if you’re looking for a new job? Hiring managers connect us with recruiters who direct us to a website where we’re expected to submit our résumés.
So when we contemplate the importance of Internet access, ask yourself if you could be competitive in a world where you didn’t have access to: email, instant messaging, video calls, online maps, digital document signing, online banking, amazon retail, craigslist, wikipedia, job boards, airbnb, and online transit booking. Consider, how successful would you be at your job without slack, google docs, google drive / dropbox, github, stackoverflow, linkedin, or meetup.com?
The challenges of being a productive citizen don’t stop at simply being able to survive. I challenge that this is the extent of the American Dream. Our founding mothers and fathers have charged us with the responsibility of being sufficiently informed and engaged to choose on our representatives and to use our vote and our voice to direct our country towards prosperity. I rely on the Internet to stay informed and to exercise my voice as a citizen. When the government takes actions which hurt Americans, infringe upon our freedom of speech, or threaten our ability to get health coverage and affordable medicine, I file my comments online. I pursue my duty to hold my representatives accountable by monitoring their performance on C-SPAN. I publish my opinions through edge networks like Facebook and Twitter. I depend on access to .gov websites to understand my rights and abide by our laws, to download forms, and to review proposed policy changes such as the FCC Docket 17–108 fact sheet. These services are not nice-to-haves, like cable tv is. These are mandatory utilities which no citizen should be unjustly denied.
As I reflect upon my present day Internet usage and think back to my childhood, one truth is abundantly clear:
All the services I once relied on to be a productive member of society have transitioned to online and have otherwise begun to fade into obscurity. We once relied on phone books and call operators, but when is the last time you looked up a phone number on any service that wasn’t the web? We used to rely on basic television, radio, and newspapers to stay up to date. Now, 38% of Americans (more than 1/3) get their news online, moments after stories break. And thank goodness; There are handfuls of cases where people with failing cellular service have has their lives saved by broadcast distress messages on media platforms like twitter. Other times, the Internet has even enabled communities to collaboratively to solve crimes. The fact is, the Internet — the World Wide Web — has become essential to participating in today’s America.
Being without Internet connectivity puts one at a disadvantage and makes it increasingly untenable for individuals to efficiently satisfy one’s most basic needs. Without Internet access, you are left behind.
The Internet needs to be a public utility.
