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The Era of the Free Internet is Ending. What Comes Next?
How will we forge connections online in the future?
The internet is going through an uncomfortable metamorphosis. It’s akin to the transformation of Western Europe after the military might of the Western Roman Empire collapsed.
The decline of central authority left a power vacuum that nobody filled for centuries until Charlemagne built an empire. Even that was short lived and most of Europe was subsequently a collection of small, independent kingdoms that characterized the era we now call The Middle Ages.
Long gone was the centralized power that facilitated easy trade and commerce, which shipped grain from Africa and the Black Sea region into Europe, not to mention, the influence of the cultural epicenter — the city of Rome itself.
The Shifting Tides of Power
As Matt Yglesias noted in his article The Past and Future of the City, the city of Rome itself suffered a substantial decline in the number of inhabitants the city had alongside its loss of military might.
This curious phenomenon has happened repeatedly throughout human history. People congregate around a bustling center, a hotbed of activity, and then, the decline…