What is the internet?

If I were to allot a term to the internet, I would call it a “Macro Network”. A large scale synthesis of the information possessed by all who participate. It isn’t really located anywhere, it is simply the sum of it’s parts. The internet is located wherever the participants and servers are. There is only one internet, separated by overlays and protocols that make distinctions such as “deep web” or the further “dark web”.

To claim that the internet is alive would be a bold statement, simply due to the unclear basis of what “alive” means. It is constantly expanding, moving, and being improved by contributors. Sure, there are automated algorithms and machine learning, but it is only as “alive” as the volume and frequency of people participating in it.

What the internet is becoming is the basis for what I find hopeful and terrifying about it. I think that it will ultimately stay the same, functionally, but become increasingly more personal and “human”. A rapid and massive system for communicating and moving information, existing to simply modify what we already do as people. As the internet grows and becomes more personally invasive we will return to the caution and responsibility that comes with any human interaction already.