The past two decades without the internet?

What sort of situation would the world be in now if the internet had never been made available en masse to the public? Either through not being released by the government on security reasons, or not being invented.

The obvious assumption is that it would mean truly vast changes in economic and social and political terms around the world. A lot of economic growth has depended on the internet... so maybe the last two decades would be a period of a "cold" and stagnating economy, unless something else received enough capital investment to pick up the slack. Politically spekaing rebellions like the Arab Spring wouldn't be so successful, candidacies like Obama/Dean/Paul wouldn't be able to gain footholds, and we wouldn't see the populist polarizing influences of grassroots internet politics- instead politics would remain the domain of elitist and more moderate media.

As for the social effects... whoah. It's beyond me to even hypothesize how culture might have shifted over the past two decades without the internet, since internet has been the most notable cultural shift. I think though it would be a more conservative and constrained culture, since the internet has been an enabler of "hedonism"(not condemning that, but I can't think of a better term) such as porn.

Of course my capacity to understand what it would be look like is limited since it has been released for my entire lifetime. Anybody with memories from before it can probably give more substantive contributions to this thread.
 
US Postal Service manages to break even, and volume of mail traffic doesn't decrease.

Newspapers are still a profitable market, and media corporations don't fear losing that source of revenue for the foreseeable future.

Fax machines might take on a greater role as disseminators of proto-email style messaging. They were poised to do so IOTL until the mid-90s, and the origin of the chain-email and some early memes lay with the fax machine.
 
US Postal Service manages to break even, and volume of mail traffic doesn't decrease.

Newspapers are still a profitable market, and media corporations don't fear losing that source of revenue for the foreseeable future.

Fax machines might take on a greater role as disseminators of proto-email style messaging. They were poised to do so IOTL until the mid-90s, and the origin of the chain-email and some early memes lay with the fax machine.
I touched on the newspaper thing... word's can't express how much better that would probably be for the world, in all honesty. The newspapers are fundamentally more moderate and intellectual then the populist and polarizing internet media, so we'd probably be talking a calmer and more productive politics- and all sorts of extremist ideas, from libertarianism to reactionary conservatism to white nationalism to truthers have been given a serious boost through the internet enabling the expression of their ideas that were wisely censored by the establishment media previously.


The fax machine point suggest an interesting possibility, that in the internet's absence other technologies will occupy certain niches that were OTL filled by the internet. One wonders how mobile phone technology might progress, maybe ultimately developing into something comparable(after 2010 hopefully to not violate my thread's terms though;))
 
That there is no internet should not stop the proliferation of cellular phone networks, based on various standards. Pretty soon the handsets would have text messages and gradually improving (even if small) screens. Perhaps we might eventually see a creation of a some sort of an cell-based "portable internet", certainly with teething problems but better than no internet at all.

On the other hand, if there still are OTL-like personal computers, local institutions such as universities would eventually find a way to build their own local networks and start linking them with others. I think countries across America and Europe would have to adopt pretty draconian measures to stop this from happening.

And one question in most of these countries would be "why stop it?".
 
Video stores would still turn a profit. (One thing that I dislike about the success of things like VOD/Netflix is that I can't go for a walk to the video store and spend an hour or two browsing titles. Not when the rental place went under...) And piracy of videos, music and games would be rare at worst.

Other benefits are that conspiracy theories relating to the 2000 US election and 9/11 remain on the fringes of society where they belong. Also there are no bloggers, no Twitter, no hackers, no viruses/trojans/worms and no f--king moron texting when they are supposed to be working. Hell, cellphones might be rare at best.

Newspapers remain popular, as does local TV. That's a benefit. As is the continued popularity of magazines. Society remains moderate and peacefully conservative, with all that that entails.
 
Can't see it happening myself. Even with the government keeping its own stuff back, someone somewhere is going to figure out how to do it, and then - unless all the governments in the world agree to crack down on it - things are going to happen.

As for stagnating economies, if the government keeps things to itself there aren't going to be a whole lot of department store chains, because there'll be no real ability to list off the day's sales to the central warehouse. Something like that anyway.
 
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And one question in most of these countries would be "why stop it?".
Government fear of the possible consequences is the only reason I could think of. Anyone have a more specific pod:confused:

no Twitter, no hackers... and no f--king moron texting when they are supposed to be working. Hell, cellphones might be rare at best.
You're actually starting to convince me this might be a borderline good thing. Seriously weakens certain forms of organized crime, such a pedophile rings/terrorist recrutiment/using hacking as a means of thievery as well.

Newspapers remain popular, as does local TV. That's a benefit. As is the continued popularity of magazines. Society remains moderate and peacefully conservative, with all that that entails.
Any regards in which this might mean a more liberal society? None come to mind...

Apparently the internet has enabled greater promiscuity. Not just porn, but hookups- for example gays of the 1980's/90's were shifting towards monogamy(in part due to AIDS), but the younger generation of gays has seen that reverse and apparently internet hookups are the most significant reason(along with AIDS being less of a death sentence). It's also led to a serious enabling and increase in adultery by married individuals.

I've heard ideas that it has some rather negative pyschological effects as well, but I looked it up and that seems to be myth resulting from technophobic reactionism then anything, with a lot of scientific research showing improvements in many regards with few downsides(excluding of course those genuinely addicted to it, such as mwa:eek::p).
 
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Video stores would still turn a profit. (One thing that I dislike about the success of things like VOD/Netflix is that I can't go for a walk to the video store and spend an hour or two browsing titles. Not when the rental place went under...)

This. Video stores were the shrines of popular culture. I can browse Netflix, but it is on my own... you don't meet people on Netflix.(Perhaps it is because I became older and more cynical)

And piracy of videos, music and games would be rare at worst.

However, I beg to differ there. After all, word of mouth, a friend of a friend, tape copying using two VCRs, CD burners and other technological dodges of copyright were there before the Internet took off in most places.

With no Internet, they would still be there, but the offer of titles would be more mainstream. Little possibility of finding K-Pop or exotic non-Hollywood films outside of their home markets or indie games.

So no Minecraft. But no Goatse either.
 
you might see a growth in popularity of other online networks like Minitel instead which would frankly cover many (though not all) of the services offered by the internet. Business promotions, emails, discussions boards and the like would still exist.

If you want as your POD a world where *nothing* like the internet arise, you probably would need to explain why. A world with more paranoid and isolationist governments would probably be needed.
 
I dont think i would be around. I got connected in 1996 just after having a minor depression and actually thinking about suicide. Nerds without Internet are weeeeeeeeeeeeeeery lonley.

HBO shows not as popular?
 
That there is no internet should not stop the proliferation of cellular phone networks, based on various standards. Pretty soon the handsets would have text messages and gradually improving (even if small) screens. Perhaps we might eventually see a creation of a some sort of an cell-based "portable internet", certainly with teething problems but better than no internet at all.

Agree that cell phones can still happen. But, I think the operative words here are "various standards". Without the internet forming numerous standards in the first place, the phone companies will be developing them on their own. Will they work together? Or will they each have their own standards and only allow their advanced features from within their own network.

On the other hand, if there still are OTL-like personal computers, local institutions such as universities would eventually find a way to build their own local networks and start linking them with others. I think countries across America and Europe would have to adopt pretty draconian measures to stop this from happening.

This.

Also, if the government doesn't allow public access to their internet, the internet may be called Compuserve, GEnie, Prodigy or AOL (at least in the U.S., someone also mentioned Minitel, which I think would also apply here). It will look a lot different, though, and it's growth may be slower. It will be more expensive, less open, and more difficult to intercommunicate between services (at least until a monopoly forms).

Partnerships with media and phone companies might lead to more expanded growth, as you can "connect" your phone and cable to these services. The companies may eventually start forming partnerships with universities which will bring in some public standards, and open up the system a bit.

Another possibility is that the internet is built even more from the ground up than OTL, as local BBSes work out ways to connect to each other, and come up with services to offer that don't just appeal to Nerds, Gamers and the like.

As for stagnating economies, if the government keeps things to itself there aren't going to be a whole lot of department store chains, because there'll be no real ability to list off the day's sales to the central warehouse. Something like that anyway.

Except that there were a lot of department store chains prior to the 1990's. Walmart, Target, etc. go way back. They may not be as connected as before, and maybe logistics will be more complicated, but it won't be more complicated than what they're already familiar with. I don't think they're going to go away.

If anything, I see them increasing. A lot of chains died off or dwindled away with the rise in internet commerce, as places like Amazon took away their customers. Chains like K-Mart may be able to stay out of bankruptcy, and will still have stores near me.
 
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