And it is no longer simply a question of the internet, and people dialing up with 1440 baud modems...
It’s MUCH more complex now. People might fear what would happen to them if the internet went down, but even beyond individual users, there are tens of thousands of businesses in the country that could not run without it. Include in that summary government itself.
My point being that the government wouldn’t just shut down the net some night, because the results would be catastrophic.
Also, with all the other platforms and technologies these days, there are tons of other communication pathways/protocols. If the gummint decides it needs to shut down the net, it is committed to shutting down all the cell phones as well, and indeed the land lines. Cell phones worldwide can get/send emails/video/images to/from the net.
Agreed. Communication today has far more components than “they” could ever hope to control. They might hinder communication for a short while, but we’d find a way around it. We always do.