Could the Internet move back to an AOL model?

This article got me thinking, Is there only one internet?

First I wondered, how many “Internets” would there be if you tracked individual usage? We tend to visit the same sites or the same type of sites. Kind of like our real world communities.

Then I thought about the “Dark Web“, and all of the private communities out there.

Then I moved on to a reoccurring thought I’ve had about the future of “Private Internets”. What if to battle security and stability people started building private Internets, with their own infrastructure. Think AOL 2.0.

While rationally I could see this happening, I have a hard time realistically seeing it happening. It goes againts the nature of the Web. But a country like China could make it a possability. If that does happen then any chance of freedom in that country is lost.

Worse will come if, say, the Chinese government decides to set up its own root directory of Chinese domain names, held on its own computers and independent of the existing US-based directory. This could give the Chinese authorities control over which sites its citizens access, potentially giving it the power to largely isolate them from the rest of the net.

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