Doomsday alert: internet to become an "unreliable toy" in 2012

[ibrother]

When does the Aztec calendar end?

Experts predict that consumer demand, already growing at 60 per cent a year, will start to exceed supply from as early as next year because of more people working online and the soaring popularity of bandwidth-hungry websites such as YouTube and services such as the BBC’s iPlayer.

It will initially lead to computers being disrupted and going offline for several minutes at a time. From 2012, however, PCs and laptops are likely to operate at a much reduced speed, rendering the internet an “unreliable toy”.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/a...

[LesYpersound]

spammers and their bots waste a lot of bandwidth--the rest will correct itself.
also the internet is much more than a toy. and the tail-end of the article appears to be for telecom companies to charge for bandwidth access on both producer and consumer ends.

[Jay]

good. so we wont be getting end of the world tweets. i would hope during the end of the world the internet would be the first to go. at least i'll die less annoyed.

[Compound Egret]

If it really happens it sounds like a return to dialup type net performance. I can see where it could be a concern in terms of medical records and the like, but I'm sure the chiros of the backbone will iron it out.

[jaydubnb]

I call shenanigans. We need more people with broadband for that to happen. There are plenty of folks in this country still on 56K. I knew a dude in Washington state who just got off of 14.4. I think this is just more ISP bullshit so that they can introduce a tiered internet where you have to pay extra to visit certain sites--if you cant, you're locked out.

[Obsidian]

Everyone remember the 2000 technology scare. *rolls eyes*

People sure do love themselves some Armageddon!

[Rosenda]

Ibrother honey, that is pretty funny to think that with reduced speed and such the Internet would become an "unreliable toy".
So how many people would be totally freaked out by that daily fact? Would it make people actually talk on the phone or in person more? Force people addicted to emailing each other to learn some face communication skills? That might be painful, for I've noticed even myself it is a lot easier to type your thought than relate them in person or even by telephone for someone to actually hear your voice. It's falsely feeling safer to reveal your innermost thoughts online when really it's not always the case. You can hide here and feel safe in a way. Most people feel more revealed when in person or on the telephone. Would that shift enough to make a difference? Would it bring more balance or do you think it would just make a huge spur in technology development in computers to counteract any terrible slowness during actual internet usage? I wonder about that and would it start costing all us users a lot more money to FAST usage time. Cause that sounds like companies wanting to promote problems just to make the everyday users like us pay more for improvements. That sounds like a mean potential thing they could take advantage of us for, and yes Lesy especially since there are so many other PRACTICAL uses on the internet and access to huge amounts of information that many businesses and individuals depend on daily too.