I’m not even gonna mention a certain fucktard’s pseudonym, because you all know who I’m talking about. It irks me that people take sock-puppets seriously. But what are you gonna do. Some people just enjoy being lied to.

I think the thing that boggles my mind the most is the fact that someone with so little knowledge about technology spouting all sorts of outrageous idiocy about the Social Media Evolution™ is still nonetheless taken seriously. I mean, I work in a field where crazy people are usually given anti-psychotic medications to calm them down, and then they’re locked up until they can demonstrate that they are no longer harmful to themselves or others. I suppose that’s one of the major differences between metaspace and meatspace. I mean, I’m just so used to seeing crazies getting wrestled to the ground, restrained, and then snowed. But whatever.

Still, it’s really pathetic to hear someone shouting about the Internet running out of tubes. It was stupid when Senator Stevens was saying it, and it’s stupid now.

Sure, obviously, someone has to maintain and upgrade capacity. Currently, private ISPs roll out more pipes when necessary. I mean, it’s not like you can really get on the Internet for free. You can get on it for cheap, extraordinarily cheap, in fact, but it isn’t free. Not counting the fact that you have to own a computer or an internet-capable mobile device, someone is always paying for these connections. Even open-access wireless routers are paid for. Either the business owners who want to keep butts in seats pays for the bandwidth, or in some cases, taxpayers pay for the bandwidth.

But we are in an era where bandwidth is necessary. Think about how all commerce stops when your local Starbucks has a malfunction with their credit card system. Visa even jokes about it in their commercials. You can’t even get cash from a bank teller when bandwidth is cut.

Add to this the fact that we are transitioning to an all-digital world, where data, cable, and voice all share the same wires, all transmitted via TCP/IP. Think about all the financial transactions in the world. You think it’ll be easy just going back to pen and paper?

Face it. Wall Street wants fatter pipes. Hollywood wants fatter pipes. Silicon Valley wants fatter pipes. And not because they’re interested in the social media experiment. They have their own uses for all that bandwidth that have nothing to do with your freedom to blog. Uses that will earn them shitloads of money. The infrastructure will get paid for. Probably before we fix all the bridges that are ready to collapse. Maybe even before New Orleans becomes a viable city again. It’s bullshit for the ISPs to be complaining that they’re not making enough money. People are willingly paying for bandwidth, and people would pay more for even more bandwidth. If you build it, they will come. I mean, an individual ISP might get torn apart by bigger and badder predators, but in the end, someone is going to be making bank. Unless Western Civilization collapses entirely, I just don’t see the need for bandwidth going away anytime soon.

I’m not trying to pretend that the Internet is the end-all, be-all of human existence. It is, like anything else, a tool. It is going to be a given that 90% of all the net-based companies founded today are going to fail. Remember that 90% of everything is crap. But that 10% that succeeds is going to change things big time. Google is just the first example in a long list of things that will revolutionize how we use information—not just for fun—but for profit as well.

I’m not just talking about “monetizing your content.” Ads will continue to play their role, but that’s not the end-point of the semantic-web.

If you can’t imagine the ways that instant access to all information, anywhere, anytime—without being burdened by clunky interfaces like iTAP, mice, or keyboards—will revolutionize your ability to make money, then you’re going to be staring at a big ocean of fail in the near-future. Adapt or die. That’s always been the rule.

I’m not saying that there aren’t going to be challenges along the way. But with NAT, virtual hosting, and IPv6, we’re not going to run out of addresses, no matter what the idiot Diggers say. With Google holding all that dark fiber in abeyance, we’re not going to run out of capacity any time soon either.

Like all social problems, the problem is not the technology. It’s going to be the people. Anyone who can’t adapt is not going to be happy about having to die.