Is there a problem with the internet?

After two years of exploring the question "Is there a problem with the internet?" Nigel Scott reaches a climax of sorts with his turn-of-the-year posts over at Excapite. They deserve some amplification from this corner. 

There is not a problem with the internet according to the social media pundits. Since things go viral with social media there is a potential gold mine available for the taking. All you have to do is get plugged in. As Nigel neatly summarizes it:

"....what was important about Rebecca Black wasn't the video but the response to the idea that "you too can have a music video that can go viral thanks to the So.Me". This inspired thousands of wanna be video stars and video makers to try their luck... just like we witnessed before with Bloggers, the App Store and Android Developers and the Social Media Game developers."

Truth be told, there is a downward spiral going on in internet economics. First we saw it with music. We pay a fraction of what we used to pay for music. Now we've come to expect all online content for free or for pennies on the dollar. The whole publishing industry is struggling to monetize itself, newspapers, magazines, books, blogs, all of it. Apparently the reward goes to those who disrupt the old guard, namely iTunes and Amazon. However, as Nigel Scott again explains to us, the software industry could be next since it shares many of the media's vulnerabilities. And he asks what is after that? Finance? Inventory management?

The Old Guard, in this case Hollywood, wants to solve the problem with copyright protection, new SOPA legislation in Congress. Can they outlaw a function of the computer machine, copy, that is actually inherent to it? According to Cory Doctorow this is just the first skirmish in what will be The Coming War on General Purpose Computation. The stakes are the freedom, fortune and privacy of the entire human race. General purpose computers have replaced most of the devices in our world. We don't have cars or radios, we have computers that serve as cars and radios. The vested interests who make these products will want to "secure" them, which will undermine the capabilities and security of every other corner of modern human society. 

There is a problem going on here. No doubt this problem has many facets which will be difficult to identify, much less solve. Then we are faced with the difficulty of reimagining this system.