What would happen if the internet stopped working forever? The Internet is like a net, it has been made with millions of cell phones, servers, and computers. If you cut any one, two, or three threads, it won’t impact much. Because there would be more ways to make this connection established. But just assume that it stopped at a large scale. I am going to explain in depth about the Internet in this post hence keep reading till the end.
What would happen if the internet stopped working forever?
Recently we have seen that Whatsapp, Facebook, and Instagram stopped working. I know this is just a social media site and the internet is classified at a huge scale. But if you think then you will realize that social media is the internet for most people.
Whenever you turn on the data, the majority of people use it for sending messages, scrolling feeds, watching videos, etc. The majority of business is dependent on Facebook to run their online business. Many small hotels and other shops use social media to communicate with their customers.
When Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram’s servers went down, for some people it was just a small problem. But most of the people faced financial loss due to this. The Internet has been centralized today and Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp used to be different companies but Facebook buy them and it became the same company now.
Also, read How Metaverse works?
If Facebook’s server crashes then WhatsApp and Instagram will also be crashed. Suppose if google gets crashed then we can not operate Google and Youtube also. It seems like these services operate the whole internet today. What would happen if the internet stopped working forever? It will impact so many users and businessmen who run their businesses on these platforms.
History of the Internet.
It was a time of the cold war, and wars were running between the Soviet Union and the USA. The USA had a fear that if the Soviet Union attacks them then they would lose their communication system.
USA’s communication system was centralized at that time. They thought that if they have to secure their system then they need to decentralize their communication system. They didn’t want to rely on a single system or on a single line or wire. The USA wanted to make such a system wherein in case, any single part gets damaged so the other part should not be defunctioned.
In 1962 there was a Scientist whose name was JCR Licklider. He was working with an agency called ARPA (Advanced Research Project Agency). JCR proposed a solution that a Galactic Network should be there between all the computers.
He wanted to make a network where the leaders and government can work together even if the Soviet Union destroy their telephone system. Based on these proposals a network was invented in 1961 whose name was ARPA Net. It was used to link the computers at that time.
The computers were available in Universities, Government agencies, and defense contractors as well. The computers used to be huge at that time and these were called mainframes. The basement used to be full in order to store such kinds of computers.
What purpose did it serve?
ARPA net has successfully linked the computers with one another networks but there was a problem. Every computer has its own language and different-different software were installed on those computers. Incompatibility was found in those computers. After that some time they found a solution and they made inter-networking.
Inter-networking means making different networks communicate with each other. Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf developed these networks so that computers can communicate with each other. These computers could easily communicate with each other and can understand different languages as well.
This invention is known as TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). Thereafter they also added an additional protocol and it was IP (Internet Protocol). Today it is well known as TCP/IP and it is also known as Handshake. It is called Handshake because different-different computers can easily communicate with each other and can understand different languages as well.
ARPA net adopted this TCP/IP on 1st Jan 1983. But at this point in time, the Internet was available to Universities, the Government, and Scientists. Normal people didn’t know much more and didn’t use the internet yet.
What is the World Wide Web?
The internet reached normal people after the invention of WWW. Most people get confused between the Internet and WWW, in reality, these are different things. WWW is the way through which it helps to access the data available on the internet. Whenever you visit any website you will see www, you are using here web. If you are watching movies on the Netflix app on your TV then here you are using the Internet.
If you are spending your time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Skype, or Netflix in a day. Then you were on the internet not on the web. The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners Lee in 1990. The main motive of this invention was that normal people can share information with each other. The only thing required for communication was a computer and the Internet.
Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail was the only source of communication at that time. Thereafter Web2.O was launched that we called the Social media apps like Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Information is shared now with only these apps on a large scale.
Conclusion.
The Internet is completely centralized now. The apps like Whatsapp and Instagram now operate by Facebook. If Facebook’s server gets crashed then all the major apps will not work. In order to counter this situation, many people including Tim wants to launch Web3.O.
They all wanted to establish a decentralized internet in the future. Such an internet should not rest on the shoulders of any one company. Such an internet should not be monopolized by 2 or 3 companies.
There are so many people who came up with the idea of a decentralized internet. There was a person who made a decentralized version of the Twitter app that is called Mastodon. The technologies like Blockchain trying to bring decentralization in our financial system. Apart from that, there are so many technologies that are coming like EPNS (Etherium Push Notification Service).
EPNS claimed that it is the first decentralized notification protocol in the world and it is made for Web 2.O. EPNS is made in India and provides a notification infrastructure. This is suitable for DEFI apps, Gaming, and NFT. I am sure you must have got the answer What would happen if the internet stopped working forever? The Internet should not depend on a single company it should be decentralized in the future.