Internet Reflection Paper

The internet is a fascinating example of an immense technological inflection which gained ground no more than three decades ago. People then had a way to connect to each other and make information available on the web on a small scale. Nowadays, the internet is ubiquitous and is now breeding ground of technological inflections. Ranging from social media to video games, an astounding amount of society has some dependency on the internet and as it remains, the internet will have an infinite number of implications. The notion of connectivity has never been more available as it is now -- 3.2 billion users and continually growing. There are many examples of these internet based technical inflections. This summary will cover some examples of

Nowadays, social media makes a big part of major landmarks of the internet -- the ability to communicate with another person, random or not, has never been easier than it is now. For example with YouTube, anyone can share their insights, hobbies, knowledge, passions, and much more so that the whole world can see. According to YouTube’s analytics, now in 2016 there are over one billion YouTube users, hundreds of millions of logged watch hours, and multiple billions of video views each day. This accounts for about one-third of active internet users across the globe. In the span of over ten years, YouTube and many other social media platforms have been able to connect an immense amount of people together, defining such a large movement in a rapidly growing era of technology. From businesses to governments to the typical person, the internet and social media makes the opportunity to communicate to one another readily available. People even have the ability to make comfortable incomes off of social media. For example, Twitch is a social media gaming platform where a streamer plays games for the audience who can interact with the gamer. According to a Forbes article, “It is possible to choose streaming and gaming as a lifelong vocation and earn over $300,000 a year.” This idea which seemed so obscure in the past shows how society can adhere to different ideas on

Of course giving a big thanks to modern day cryptography, business via the internet has grown monumentally allowing people to buy things from their home. According to the US Department of Commerce, internet sales in 2015 accrued around 347 billion dollars which was an increase of 14.7 percent from the previous year. Of course companies such as Amazon have been revolutionizing the online shopping process, making online commerce much more simpler and cheaper. PayPal is also an interesting example of a technological inflection regarding internet commerce. Throughout the years, PayPal has become the main transaction source for many buyers and merchants expanding the idea of commerce through the internet. Society now has a way to transfer sums of money wirelessly and be guaranteed security in doing so. Now the question to be asked is: how much time until Amazon and other eCommerce websites bankrupt business? Although the answer is not yet clear, it is another obscure concept that nobody would have thought about in the previous couple of decades. One can only imagine a world where all shopping can be done online without ever leaving the