Networking policy debates usually assume a future monolithic internetwork following consistent policies despite a number of independent operators, rarely questioning whether such a structure makes practical sense. Two distinct, loosely interconnected publicly accessible digital internetworks may emerge, which will surely be better than just one.
Technologists play the pivotal role.
I call the second internetwork the Anti-net not for demagoguery but to make a historical allusion, explained below. The point of this paper is not to join the heated debate over commercialization of the Internet. Its intent is to argue that new technology will bring about enormous changes in social and cultural power by re-establishing a balance of information control in modern society. This a desirable balance that is only possible through the encouragement of a dual, perhaps even plural set of internetworks with similar technology but vastly different operating paradigms. Historically, losses and gains of information technology have triggered power shifts between monolithic, inevitably corrupt leadership and open, democratic societies in which corruption is more readily uncovered and remedied.