Eric Klinker: The future of the internet is open, permission-less innovation (PART 1)

beyond the early online walled gardens of tightly controlled content, were it otherwise. Only the open Internet allowed innovation to flourish and gave us all what we recognize as the dominant cultural and technological engine of our time. Permission-less innovation remains the key. There could be no BitTorrent or Google or anything else we cherish on the Internet if those early innovators had to seek permission before or after building these things.

Investment simply will not flow to areas or ideas that can be easily denied or strangled at will.

We know this for a fact because we've seen closed alternatives to the Internet, large platforms and networks that were not open. The early phone network was just such an example. A tightly controlled and closed platform. A monopoly whose dominant power over the market curtailed innovation.



New ideas simply weren't permitted and even though this network grew to be as dominant and ubiquitous in its day as the Internet is today, you saw very little innovation or new capability in the span of 100 years. Without a strong guarantee for network neutrality, the natural trend of things is back towards something like the phone network. Towards a world where innovation is increasingly difficult until one day,

the handful of dominant players on the Internet are all we have

and all we ever will have. Of course, the best way to achieve this principle is very much an open debate. In recent years, there has been a lot of new policy established in this area, though the great irony perhaps being that the early Internet thrived – and remained neutral – with a very light regulatory touch. In the future, a neutral, thriving Internet will invariably rest on a balance between market forces and good policy. There are many ideas and several experiments playing out in various markets to guide us into the future. A future that is hopefully bright and open.

Click here for PART 2: With Eric we talk about the challenges that BitTorrent poses for the music and film industries, what challenges does BitTorrent itself have to overcome and his plans for the development of the company.