What if the Internet Never Existed?

[Music] [Music] have you ever talked to a person who has complained about kids these days on their phones and computers not going outside because of the darn internet I mean I haven't but that's because I'm inside all day on the Internet the point I'm making is that the invention of the Internet has forever altered the way that people socialize spread and receive information and I'm not simply talking about going under your Twitter's or snapchats Becky I mean the Internet the global system of interconnected computer networks yeah it profoundly shaped the 20:17 societies we see today be it economically or politically and even if you didn't realize that you the person watching this video certainly can think of how the Internet has shaped you especially younger people who have only grown up in an increasingly Internet dependent world during a trip to VidCon I had a discussion with Tristan from step back history about the impact the Internet has had on our society in the large scale the path of our lives personally so we thought of a question what if the internet never existed in this alternate timeline we imagined for some reason the internet never exists for the main public it doesn't bleed into an influence civilian society in any way what would such an alternate 21st century even look like without the World Wide Web of course though because some probably are wondering how such a thing could even happen we need to provide some context about the origins of our beloved Internet and Tristan knows much more about those origins than me so hey folks Tristan here from step back history I'm gonna let the alternate history and Master get into our internet list world but to flesh it out let's look at how the internet came to be in our timeline the first work on the internet comes from the 1950s computer scientists in France the UK and the United States built upon computer technology developed during the Second World War for cracking codes or aiming artillery shells when computers took a lot of time to process a problem networking more than one computer to increase speed was one of the first obvious solutions by the 1960s the US Department of Defense which had been thinking a lot about the Soviet Union and nuclear war saw the promise of these early networked ideas and decided to make contracts with computer scientists around the United States to develop a method to send digital information between computers they wanted something to send a message without central nodes you know in case a node was destroyed Cody can you draw some mushroom clouds and nuclear devastation over a map of the u.s. nice the first internet was called ARPANET and it went live in 1969 it sent part of a message from UCLA to Stanford before crashing but a breakthrough nonetheless the invention key to the way the internet works today is something called packet switching this is called the alternate history hub not the alternate Tristan who is a historian not a computer scientist explains computer science principles hub so I'll spare the details beyond saying it lets a message go from computer a to computer d by exchanging little packets of data through computers B and C even if the connection can only express ones and zeros so if computer C leaves the network Cody can we see that mushroom cloud again the message can still go through computer B I'll be it a little slower what the Department of Defense would help develop with all that sweet sweet funding for research these labs developed a series of standards for those packets of data so every computer knows where one starts ends and what's inside today we call this the Internet Protocol suite or tcp/ip by the mid-1970s this protocol was the standard for ARPANET in the early 80s everything was bigger including the small Internet the Department of Defense decided to open up this technology and development was picked up by the National Science Foundation they used it to build a network between universities in the United States so they could share computing power in the various supercomputers on these emphasis at the same time CERN the Hadron Collider people were developing a language that allowed for text files to have links linked to other text files that one could load via this network so any node could have access to that page this gave them the credit for what we call today the world wide web the National Science Foundation made the network and CERN invented websites by the late 80s some private networks began to get a limited connection to this Internet and in 1995 the NSF shut down their network the science from making web pages and the tcp/ip protocols were then released to the public no restrictions no copyrights or trademarks and because of that the internet began as a free realm with no barriers to entry the private web began in the mid-90s and has revolutionized nearly every corner of our society so for the sake of an alternate history the possibility of a world where all these technologies merged into the Internet we know today seems the less likely outcome may be the Department of Defense was a little more paranoid and kept those network technologies secret maybe they cut funding to the project because of a short-sighted bureaucrat or maybe no one comes up with the idea of packet switching either way in this scenario we have computers but not the Internet I'll let Cody pick up from here so like Tristan said in this alternate timeline somehow the Internet is only used by the United States government or any other government who happens to steal it who knows this alternate world without the Internet is odd at least from our perspective but to the people in an Internet less age nothing changes because to them they aren't missing out on anything so in some ways things before the internet continue on their path so we all know some products don't seem to age well they seem innovative for the time but today only seem dated innovation of technology is like a tree it involves branches that go in every direction and many lead to nowhere with hindsight we know which products eventually made up the solid base of the trunk the smart phone the tablet digital streaming but there are also products whose branches ended mostly because of the rise of digital media things like portable DVD players for those TV show cartridges and Game Boys those were forgotten to time yeah in a world where the internet does not exist those products which became stuck in the period of the late 90s and early 2000s have an entirely new destiny an alternate age where those products aren't branches that end they are the trunk of the tree so let's go to an alternate 2017 computers of course still exist but the computer is not really a machine which is appealing to everyone in a world without the internet a computer does what it was originally designed to do compute stuff be tools to crunch numbers computers are dominant in the jobs of pretty much every field especially the scientific and business world but they're never really used for social activities they be isolated islands of computing power that's a theme of this alternate 21st century isolation the Internet is something that allowed so many people to interact with one another so it makes sense more social isolation exists but it's also product isolation from one another without digital media technology of this internet Lesage is reliant on physical storage units to transfer media things like CDs cards and blu-rays are the only viable ways to store information like movies songs or TV shows the age of streaming simply does not exist that should be too shocking without digital media people would still go to video rental stores the concept of video renting is never outdated in 2017 blockbuster is still a successful business maybe even watch the movie on a portable blu-ray player one of the many products created to adapt to a world where physical media storage is the only way without the internet to even order DVDs online Netflix doesn't even exist without digital media the design of 2017 phones is quite altered or really not altered much since 2006 phones adapted touchscreens as it was the easiest way to browse the internet and mult whole apps without digital services to download or browse the design isn't really practical the rapid design change of phones to touchscreen doesn't happen if at all cell phones are used for mostly just communication texting and calling both of which can be achieved with buttons for cheap touchscreen phones still exist but they'd be niche due to the price for less use they'd be seen as expensive PDAs the efficiency of button phones means this design never becomes outdated but what about mobile gaming you might be thinking well Jimmy without digital download it's understandable games like Angry Birds and clash of clans don't exist but that doesn't mean gaming on your phone doesn't happen at all since media could only be stored physically now it isn't crazy to believe that some games could simply be stored on SD cards to be put onto phones like the system the DS had a vast alternate market of SD mobile games maybe even phones built with controls in mind even if that doesn't happen with games it could still happen with music CDs were replaced with digital download from the internet but without digital download then a physical storage product would need to replace the CD something smaller and lighter the card to alternate people of 2017 the future could be seen as putting small cards into their phones phasing out CD players of the 2000s a spiritual successor to the lachman's of the eighties a pretty interesting part of this internet 'less world is that these alternate people would view this technology as the future oh sorry Cody didn't want to interrupt here but I have a few notes on this timeline not world shattering but interesting I study media history my job and wanted to add a few details of what media looks like in this scenario without online banking you might use something like prepaid minutes as a pseudo currency to do transactions this sounds crazy but the inspiration comes from our timeline in many countries where many people don't have bank accounts this happens places around the developing world have cell phones and prepaid minutes act as a way to exchange money in a place where hiding away cash was the only option they had before no one likes going to the bank so in this timeline this is normal everywhere move aside Bitcoin prepaid minutes are here this might mean big banks get into the cell phone game or vice versa television would look different as well by the end of the 90s cable TV had balkanized into a lot of small networks we used to make lame jokes about how there were 200 channels and nothing to watch i imagine this was developed with less competition from online media and a wider customer base we might have thousands of channels with nothing to watch you might have the same problem cable networks have today where new subscription models let you choose channels instead of big bundles meaning some smaller networks are struggling video games might not even be as big a thing much of the success of competitive games come from online competition and so I'd expect that they're still around but more of a niche this alternate 2017 is a mixed bag it's far calmer politically than an AR timeline there is no sensationalist web articles to go around no bubble-shaped online but the control of information is in the hands of far fewer people I feel like traditional media while alive would be pretty ominous we already live in a world where six companies control most of the media so in a world where there is no alternative no internet to communicate or spread information they are the only ones controlling the narrative yes things politically are less extreme but also at what cost speaking of at what cost the Arab Spring was only possible in a region of political oppression because of social media which allowed people to organize protests against regimes well we all know how that turned out without the internet I don't see the Arab Spring happening at all at least to the viral extent that it did and be too difficult to organize without being imprisoned as well there is no Syrian civil war no influx of refugees that sparked nationalist movements all across Europe the birth of social media meant that ideas and trends could rise and die faster almost like a never-ending blender churning up and grinding up content it becomes difficult to nail down what exactly the 2010s are when even certain years can have their own feeling and that is due to the instantaneous access of information through the internet this alternate 2017 would be in a decade which never saw social media or the internet viral video instead our generation would really be influenced by a few media companies and traditional journalism the gatekeepers of those who would influence what is considered trendy just like in the 80's and 90's the culture of the early 2000s would have continued on the future would be defined by phones with buttons and cards inserted into them for music computers are basically large calculators and cable is the main source of news and entertainment but even if this is a world with odd technology and slightly calmer politics the thing I find most fascinating when imagining a world without the Internet is that unlike all of my other scenarios which involve the fate of Nations and Wars this is personal this is one so close to our own time that all of us would still exist but perhaps due to the Internet's influence in our lives be slightly or dramatically different people over the decades the access to information it has allowed has shaped the worldview for countless people for many including myself its creation is intertwined with our identities and the very thought of it never existing becomes weird to imagine because unlike America never being independent or even the Black Death wiping out Europe this is something that all of us in the 21st century can it connect to on an emotional level the question I have for you is where do you think you would be in this alternate world one where the internet didn't exist would you be different for me of course I want to have this channel this opportunity but I'd still want to voice my opinion I'd probably go do what I was originally going to do be a journalist with an op-ed and since print journalism would it be dead that could be nice career choice I think a lot of my curiosity and academic Ness comes from the internet access I had in my formative years I didn't do all that well in high school and I entertained delusions of becoming a musician in this timeline instead of becoming a historian I became a musician or an actor in musical theatre if those don't work out I'm sure there's an unskilled labor job I hate waiting for me so what do you think would happen in this alternate world one where there never was the Internet tell me in the comments of course this is simply one scenario of the countless that could happen we'll never truly know what could happen if history had been changed but it's always fun to theorize this is Cody of altering history hub hey again everybody I want to thank Cody for letting me work on the scenario with you guys I myself run a channel called step back history where every week I talk about topics in history I made a video to go along with this one about theories of Technology and why net neutrality is a more important thing to preserve than you might think I'm sure cody has something to click on it for you to check it out and I hope to see you all there [Music]

Channel: AlternateHistoryHub

Views: 1,057,344

Rating: 4.9155025 out of 5

Keywords: What if the Internet Never Existed?, Internet doesn't exist, No Internet, Aesthetic, Vaporwave, Internet history, AlternateHistoryHub, alternate history, what if there was no internet, no internet video, alternate history video, StepBack History, Cody alternatehistoryhub, internet education, funny education

Id: tszFFafk8pA

Length: 16min 40sec (1000 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 17 2017