The Death of The Internet?

This is something to ponder. For the past twenty-odd years it’s been possible to freely move around the Internet, from resource to resource, all the while using the same browser. The freely-used Internet is about to be replaced with the launching of applications; generally stored on the edge device and then accessing remote (cloud-based) resources over the Internet. We got into this paradigm because it seemed to make more sense to run applications on small-screened mobile devices, which are usually individually owned. Downloadable applications tend to give the application provider more control over the user experience, which is why Google, Apple, Facebook and others who benefit from controlling the user experience push applications. Applications can also can get around the myriad incompatibilities of a free-browsing world. If the app runs on your local device, then it controls the communications to the cloud and does it well–because it was written for it. Everything has two sides, however. Application use locks the user into a relationship with the application provider (back to the Google, Apple and Facebook), and it’s not as easy to move around to other offerings. And the downloading of applications can also divert the user from some intended purpose. That’s fine if the device is a user-owned device that can be freely adapted with application downloads; if it’s a corporate-owned or school-owned device downloadable applications can change the channel, so to speak, and put the device beyond organizational control. There are now third-party software makers developing ‘connection-ware’ products that allow freer movement between applications–just like in the days of the old Internet, before application-driven control. Time will tell if these new connection products succeed in breaking the lock on the control over user experience.