Socio-Economic Challenges from and for Future Internet

Abstract

There are several papers available addressing the challenges for Future Internet that result from socio-economic aspects; such challenges must be obviously taken into account when constructing and developing Future Internet. This paper, however, takes an opposite view that from the dynamics of the development of Internet itself (or Future Internet) result challenges for the socio-economic development and even for the paradigm of understanding economy; such challenges must be taken into account first, then – in a feedback loop - lead to the modification of socio-economic challenges for Future Internet. This change of perspective is necessary because the analysis of socio-economic challenges for Future Internet is typically based on a classical paradigm of equilibrium economics. While useful, this paradigm is limited and has been shown incomplete, e.g., by the recent world-wide financial and economic crisis. This paper shows that the informational revolution – including but not limited to the development of Internet – has already changed the behavior of main socio-economic agents as well as of economic markets and our understanding of them; thus, new perspectives are needed. The paper also shows that a useful perspective is that not of expected benefits from Future Internet – there are many such benefits and they will surely motivate enough economic development of Future Internet – but of socio-economic threats resulting from the dynamic development of the Internet. There are several such threats and conflicts that can be foreseen: the conflict between corporatization and governance; the conflict between direct and indirect limits to freedom; the trend towards elitarism inherent in Internet development dynamics versus democracy; the threat of network and computer domination over people, etc. Some of such threats and conflicts are discussed in the paper.