No more www, what would happen?

[ddanbe]

What would happen to the world if for some relatively long (say 3 months) period, we would be deprived of internet?
For one thing, I would not be able to type this on DaniWeb!
No more internet games.
The most nearby pizza restaurant? Your cell phone won't tell you.
etc. etc.

[Suzie999]

Depends if you mean the internet disappeard or you just were not allowed to use it.

I'd be fine with the latter, I go months without using internet on any kind of device.

But the former would cause most of the modern world to crumble, we're almost totally dependant on it.

[ddanbe]

I come from a world with no internet at all. So indeed I'm affraid that now we can't do without it or the world would partly cease to exist.

[Reverend Jim]

That happens with technology. At first it is a convenience, then we become dependent on it. Think about modern agriculture. We are so dependent on non-sustainable techniques that we will eventually be unable to feed everyone (and I'm not talking just third world countries). What happens when antibiotics are no longer effective? What would we do if vaccinations were no longer available. We'd be one plague away from the total collapse of civilization.

Does anyone recall a BBC sesries from the 70s called Survivors? I thought it was an excellent depiction of a post-plague society in miniature.

As for the internet, what about if we just lost the ability to phone?

[Slavi]

Some people will find out that "outside" exists, computer will become boring and I will be out of a job :(

Frankly I love being free of "connections". Am going on vacation tomorrow and other than phoning gf at home, I'll be 10 days without internet - well pretty much. Bliss. I rediscover the beauty of human interaction and having to "work" to get things. It's only when I'm on holiday thaat it strikes me how dependent we are on our little devil boxes. If only we could stop mobile connections too. Payphone for only the most important calls. Joy.

The youth of today would actually learn what it is to learn stuff for themselves, not merely resorting to instantaneously having dubious 'info' at their fingertips. I'd be out of a job too, but then I may have to get a real one - one that actually matters.

[Suzie999]

It's not just our silly little comforts and entertainment, banking would probably fold, shops would close, trains would halt, TV would freeze and would not be surprised if traffic lights relied heavily on internet these days too as well as CCTV and... well the list goes on.

[jwenting]

I came from a world without internet, and could go back to it. I'd need to find another job though, as mine depends heavily on creating software that runs through or uses in some other way the internet :)

We had banking before the internet. They'd have to open more local branches with real people! OMG. Unthinkable :)

[Suzie999]

Indeed there are many things we had before internet, but most of them now rely on it. For example, you walk into your branch and ask for money, they don't know what to do, they cannot identify you, they do not know how much money you have in your account or if you even have one.

Online shopping dies instantly and millions shop for food via it, now they're all going to the physical shop, and that shop is empty by the end of the first day, and them and their suppliers do not have another method of ordering and supplying, and even if they did, their own warehouses would be empty by the end of the week, and thats only if the roads are not in chaos because sat navs aren't working or the roads aren't looking like scrap yards.

If the population were 10% of what it is, then we'd be in with a chance. I'm talking about urban life of course, the country folk would last longer, well until my hubby and I made our way there, me with my cooking pot and him with his spear :)

[Reverend Jim]

One thing we'd be well rid of is the automated trading on the stock exchange. We've seen the abuses where algorithms are used to trade ahead by microseconds thereby robbing the system of a billion here and there and adding nothing of value.

[vegaseat]

It would only go away if "something" better came along. Maybe finally "something" the hackers couldn't abuse at will.

I just got a letter from the UCLA hospital that their database got hacked/stolen with all their patients (present and past) private information on it! I could do without this grap!

I dont think anybody is seriously saying that dropping the internet would not cause problems suzie. Heh heh. I was being facetious. Anyhow. I.d love to see a non-networked world again. It.ll never happen but I can't help thinking that even though you had to jump through more hoops, you at least learned the value of things

[Suzie999]

I think it would be nice too.
My parents are always grumbling about demon technology and how things were much better and simpler back in the day. I used to just mock them, but as I look around me now going abouy my day I have to keep myself afloat on a sea of despair. My boys are strictly monitored on the amount of time they are allowed to fiddle around on their devices and I face a constant battle kicking them out of the house for a least 2 hours per day. I'm lucky I know how to configure our router, and know there are no other open hotspots in range, or I'd be run off my feet.

They call me a hypocrite because sometimes I spent many hours at a time coding, but I say, well here's the rule, I'f I'm on my computer, you can fiddle with your devices too. Then I'm the best mum in the world :)

[Agilemind]

CCTV

Closed-circuit TV by definition isn't dependent on the internet.

It's not just our silly little comforts and entertainment, banking would probably fold, shops would close, trains would halt, TV would freeze and would not be surprised if traffic lights relied heavily on internet these days too as well as CCTV and... well the list goes on.

Banking & the finance industry would be a mess, I have to admit I don't know if bank branches have local copies of customer databases or are connected to local networks or if everything is done via the internet. The latter seems rather insecure which makes me doubt that it is actually the case. Assuming computers & technology still worked just the internet was down banks might still have basic functions. Also I've had some stores use my credit card for a purchase without it touching any kind of electronic device, so credit cards & some debit cards can be used without internet connections.

I highly doubt traffic lights rely on the internet at all. Some are wired to sensors in the roads or they might use radio waves to communicate with each other but I think most are just on timers for their basic functions. There might be some which can be remotely controlled by emergency vehicles but again I'm certain this is not done via the internet but through some kind of EMF (infrared or radiowaves).

Online shopping dies instantly and millions shop for food via it, now they're all going to the physical shop, and that shop is empty by the end of the first day, and them and their suppliers do not have another method of ordering and supplying, and even if they did, their own warehouses would be empty by the end of the week, and thats only if the roads are not in chaos because sat navs aren't working or the roads aren't looking like scrap yards.

What? just because the internet isn't working doesn't mean airplanes will fall from the sky, or GPS ceases to function (GPS is based on EMF signals from satelites so would still work fine without the internet). The only thing that would be lost is remote accessing of maps so you might have more people getting lost than usual but the roads would not be disaster areas. Even if people couldn't order food over the internet that food would still reach the local warehouses so the physical stores would just have to telephone or god-forbid send a physical letter to order more food to meet the increased demand (Local postal services only take 1-2 days to deliver a letter and the delivery trucks that would be shipping to people's door for internet-shopping could be repurposed to deliver to local cornerstores/grocery stores).

Pre-recorded TV would still be there and could be broadcast via cable (again cable TV doesn't require internet). Live TV shows & the news in particular would be a huge mess though because stock footage/sound would be difficult to get, research would be much more difficult, getting images etc.. from field reporters would be compromized. So it could be broadcast but it would be crap, so TV stations would probably have to replace it by showing reruns from their archives. Same goes for radio.

Basically there would be a massive economic recession/meltdown because of the banks & financial industry collapsing (or maybe not since stocks couldn't be bought or sold, it might just be a freeze like what has been done in Greece or was done on Wall Street when a HFT algorithm was buggy), though you would have a hard time finding out about it because there would be minimal news being broadcast, but most goods and services would still be available. It would mainly be entertainment that is annihilated (no online gaming, no downloading new books or blogs or podcasts, no streaming TV or movies or videos). So there would be a huge risk of looting (hard to get money to buy stuff + nothing to do).

[Suzie999]

Yes, I'm sure it would all be just fine.

[vegaseat]

There might be a lot of "nationalnets" rather than one "internet".

[Agilemind]

Yes, I'm sure it would all be just fine.

More or less yes, mostly tons of things would be slower and less efficient but they would not collapse. You might not have the full range of foods available all the time but you wouldn't starve, likewise infrastructure problems would be slower to be detected and slower to fix (have to mail or go collect blueprints from the computers they are stored on), any job requiring research would become much much slower. But really the internet is just a faster version of the telephone network which is just a faster version of the postal service.

Now if all computers were to die that would be a huge crisis because tons of data is only stored in digital form now. But everything on the internet has a physical location where it is stored and from which it could be retrieved in other ways if the internet was to go down.

[Suzie999]

I admire your faith in humanity, but I think the selfishness (for want of a stronger word) of humans, would see them kill each other before having to walk a mile for a pint of milk.

[Reverend Jim]

A pint of beer, maybe.

[jwenting]

Banking & the finance industry would be a mess, I have to admit I don't know if bank branches have local copies of customer databases or are connected to local networks or if everything is done via the internet.

yes and no.
Used to work on those systems years and years ago. Back then (and probably still to a large degree) banks would have their own networks connecting their offices, consisting of leased lines between each of them and their own private datacenters.
Today those lines may in part be replaced with highly encrypted internet connections (not your standard 128 bit encrypted SSL for sure), don't know.
Some systems had local databases that were synched regularly with the central servers (usuallyy after office hours), others made direct connections to the central mainframes.

Back when even at the IT department at corporate HQ we had no internet (that was late 1990s...). Internet was available in the company but highly compartmentalised. To gain access you had to put in a request that had to be authorised by several people at very high level in the corporation, then the validity of the request was vetted by the security department to determine whether you really, really, really needed the access.
Only then were you given an account to use one of the few computers with internet access in the building (one per floor maybe), computers that had no way to get data from and to them (no floppy drives, CD drives, all external ports either removed or sealed in a metal enclosure that was glued on with superglue and then bolted in place) except a connection to a laser printer and a keyboard (and mouse).
If you wanted something downloaded (say as a developer we needed a new version of an Apache library) you had to put in a separate, signed and countersigned, request with the security department who'd then download it for you, check it to see if it posed a security risk, and then delivered it to you on an encrypted floppy or on a temporary network share.

I highly doubt traffic lights rely on the internet at all. Some are wired to sensors in the roads or they might use radio waves to communicate with each other but I think most are just on timers for their basic functions. There m

Ever more cities and other governments network their traffic control systems so they can access them from central control rooms to monitor and regulate the flow of traffic.
Often those are dedicated networks with private lines, but I can imagine especially smaller towns and cities wanting such functionality using public lines and the internet for it (again, heavily encrypted of course), and companies springing up to offer the monitoring and control software as a SAAS solution.

[Agilemind]

Often those are dedicated networks with private lines, but I can imagine especially smaller towns and cities wanting such functionality using public lines and the internet for it

Possibly, but the lack of broadband in smaller towns I would think would make it inefficient compared to having their own dedicated lines or using cable/telephone lines. Plus losing the ability to monitor & change settings of traffic lights doesn't necessarily destroy their base settings so I would suspect any such system would stick with current settings (or reset to defaults) if the internet connection failed rather than just turning off or entering one of the power-failure modes (flashing red or flashing yellow). So there would be more congestions and gridlock (but then again some people probably wouldn't be able to work so congestion might not be that bad).

I admire your faith in humanity, but I think the selfishness (for want of a stronger word) of humans, would see them kill each other before having to walk a mile for a pint of milk.

It wasn't that long ago that a large chunk of Eastern Canada/USA lost all electricity for several days (some for a week or two) and nothing disasterous happened. Losing the internet would be FAR less problematic than that.

People are generally very forgiving of inconvience & cooperative if they know what is causing it than if they don't. Eg. if you are stuck in a traffic jam on the highway you'll be more annoyed if you don't know what is causing the jam, than if you know there was a fatal car accident up ahead.

[advent_geek]

i will lose my job, if there is no more www

[jkon]

What would happen if internet cease to exist is that we (as human kind) will built it once again. I am a bit troubled of how this would be done , because the way internet was developed is pro freedom of speech and knowledge sharing (despite the failed and some times funny attempts to be otherwise). Sure if governments would decide today , knowing what they know about the power of internet how it would be they probably would like more centralized grid. And then we would have two or even more internet(s) (we still have but luckily the other ones don't have any public acceptance).

[Reverend Jim]

As I understand it, DARPA initially developed the first internet to create a communication grid that could not easily be shut down and now it seems the biggest complaint that government has with the internet is that it cannot easily be controlled. Kind of ironic, don't you think?

[Agilemind]

I am a bit troubled of how this would be done , because the way internet was developed is pro freedom of speech and knowledge sharing (despite the failed and some times funny attempts to be otherwise).

Naw cause before the internet there were centralized networks run by companies that people could pay to connect to & access the info on those servers but they didn't grow to large size because they were centralized. The reason the internet is successful is because of the amount of information available through it and that information is available through it because it is decentralized and easy for people to join in. Like Wikipedia vs the Encyclopedia Britannica, Britannica is available online just like Wikipedia but it is hardly used in comparison to Wiki because it isn't as upto date and doesn't have as much info on it as Wiki, because it is centrally curated/managed by a few people whereas Wiki is decentralized and is contributed to by large numbers of users. Same goes for pretty much every internet 'utility' (ie. Youtube, Instagram, Tumblr, FB, Twitter, Craigs list, eBay and even Amazon now..) really the only thing that bucks the trend is Google Maps.

[webecedarian]

You know, pople did eart pizza, even before the internet.

I think it would be great. Maybe it would wake people up a bit. Me, I'd be happy reading.