The Internet in Physical and Digital Forms
Aaron Deacon in his own words | A Network50 Spotlight
By Aaron Deacon
For so many years, Star Trek told us that space was the final frontier. Then came the Internet. The Internet has a complicated relationship with the physical world. While much is made of the Web’s ability to disrupt the idea of place, and it’s potential to create virtual bridges across space, it also manifests certain characteristics that we typically assign to land use.
Consider the URL — the web address that we use to route online traffic. Domain names have become a kind of real estate and the home page of the website is the front door to any business. At this point, I’m not even sure you need to say “virtual” front door — the web site is actually the portal you need to go through in order to do business with an online retailer. In some sense, it’s the verbs whose meanings have changed; you can argue that the essence of “to go through” or “to enter” has changed more than “front door.”
While I think the evolution of language is an interesting enough topic in and of itself, the point here is more than semantic. While our actions — how we as beings relate to objects — have changed in a digital world, there is a very real sense in which the objects we relate to in that digital world have the same functions as objects in the physical world. But the systems we are building to help navigate these interactions lag far behind the interactions themselves.
Underneath all the digital objects and artifacts that make up our everyday experience of the online world, are the copper wires and fiber optic cables and switches and hardware and conduit that enable our digital world to exist. Between that layer of physical infrastructure and digital user interfaces, we have new layers of data, software applications and routing protocols — a new digital infrastructure that is fundamentally disassociated with the physical world.
Throughout human history, the institutions and associations we’ve created to preserve the social order and the dignity of human persons have been fundamentally shaped by physical proximity. Our cities and towns, nations and states, schools and churches are functions of geography as much as ideas. As the Internet — in both its physical and digital forms — displaces our notions of geography, we need to make sure these critical institutions adapt as well.
Aaron Deacon works as the Managing Director of Kansas City Digital Drive and is involved in multiple projects in Kansas City to grow and connect the technology community and also advance innovation and support the entrepreneurship ecosystem. He has been active in the internet health movement in Kansas City and a MozFest volunteer and presenter. He is a member of our first cohort of “Network50.”
