Looking back a decade
In the current day and age (2021), we are seeing digital content being created at an astounding rate. Never in history before, did individuals have so much power of their voice and content that they can reach out to mass audiences with a click of a button. If you look at internet growth statistics (source: statista.com), there were 4.66 billion active internet users around the world in January 2021 (source: data reported), and there were 319 million new internet users in 2020. The end of 2021 could see two trillion Google searches (source: ILS)
Looking back a decade
In the current day and age (2021), we are seeing digital content being created at an astounding rate. Never in history before, did individuals have so much power of their voice and content so that they can reach out to mass audiences with a click of a button. If you look at internet growth statistics (source: statista.com), there were 4.66 billion active internet users around the world in January 2021 (source: data reported), and there were 319 million new internet users in 2020. The end of 2021 could see two trillion Google searches (source: ILS)
The below graph shows the volume/data information created, captured, copied, and consumed worldwide from 2010 to 2015.
This wasn’t that prevalent just a decade back (pre-2010s) when we had a smartphone that was still way too expensive for the masses to afford. At that time Motorola, Nokia, HTC, etc were still dominant players in the mobile phone industry. But, the introduction of Apple and Android phones starting in the late 00s suddenly changed the whole landscape of how consumers create, capture, and consume content. Suddenly, a phone can record, edit, and publish digital content with a click of a few buttons. Starting at that time, these massive internet companies rebuilt platforms to share content with mass audiences over sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. Remember there were few companies that had distributed compute power and storage capacity to hold most of the digital content.
Also, the phone data plans were something we didn’t think of paying at that time because we didn’t like browsing or surfing over the phone. We were still looking for a better experience through the desktop. However, the telcos were making this affordable to everyone with cheaper plans every year, and fast speed due to the technology advancements in the transfer of digital content through radio signals.
Suddenly, we have the whole world given a device that can not only access the internet from places where you have mobile tower services but also high high-definition camera to record and publish content. This led to the rise of “billions of voices” over the internet and publishing content has never before. Now, everyone is creating their own blog, video YouTube channel specific to their industry and create cloud software that can be accessed and managed from everywhere. We completely shifted ourselves from having to rely on routers, modems, digital camcorders, and video editor software to just open your mobile phone and starting recording and sharing with the world.
Now, the digital content on the internet is so huge that it will take someone more than a lifetime to go through it. According to Domo, on average, every human has created at least 1.7 MB of data per second in 2020, We all created 2.5 quintillion data bytes daily in 2020, and 463 exabytes of data will be generated each day by people as of 2025.
For each specific topic, you can find millions of hours of content on YouTube, endless articles, and blog websites. You can become an expert in any field if you choose to spend time on it. The educational system has been transformed because anyone can learn from the digital content that is accessible through these computer networks over TCP/IP.
Another part of this story is that most search engines and news providers over the internet cover only the surface of the news or information. At the bottom of the internet lies a huge amount of deep web data that can’t be accessed by these search engines. Within the deep web, we have places for anonymous network routing of information through layered protocols such as Tor. The information that is currently available over the internet is astoundingly humongous.
Searching for Identity
With this fast-paced content generation over the internet, people who are not engaging in it are losing their voice and somehow even having difficulty defining their identity.
An identity that the web or cyberspace provides is special. Because we are judgemental humans and are constantly judged by others, the internet provides a platform to define our own identity to prove to others. You can have your portfolio or specific content created on topics that you are passionate about.
For someone, who is not present in this realm of identification, is somehow questioned about their skills and knowledge. We have old gurus who were off-grid and started to show up on YouTube channels and other internet portals. Then, we have a lot of fake gurus and experts running ad campaigns to attract you to buy their products. There are true influencers as well because of the share volume of real content they generate over the internet. However, we are seeing this trend where you have to discern yourself to avoid following fake gurus or professionals just because they claim to have it done before.
But, this means that you have built your identity over the internet for someone to genuinely accept you as an expert or professional with valid skill-sets. This requires truly communicating your passion and collaborating with people around the world on topics of interest. Especially, having the network effect where you can provide credibility to your work.
Another side to this is that people who have chosen to remember off-grid from the internet are going to have a tough time in the future because of the shared influence of its usage by all of us. We are all inter-connected, yet we are far from each other. This off-grid approach can have a huge negative consequence in the future.
The New Normal
In 2020–21, due to the pandemic outbreak, we saw more people working remotely than ever in history. This has only accelerated the pace of change we are seeing in the current adoption of the internet and information abundance. More than ever, internet connectivity has become an essential part of household monthly bill payment cycle, you can choose to be off-grid but you will miss out on a lot of things as “house without electricity in the 20th century”.
People started to create content and engagements so much more than it is really hard to keep up with stuff. For every topic out there, there are hundreds or thousands of content creators. This trend is not going to slow down, and the voices of billions continue to come through this internet pipeline and straight to your eyes from chrome or edge browsers.
