We Need To Rewild The Internet

Maria Farrell and Robin Berjon argue that the internet has become concentrated and controlled much like the monoculture forests of 18th-century Prussia and Saxony, and that it should be "rewilded" rather than repaired. They say a handful of firms now hold near-monopolies over browsers, search, mobile operating systems and cloud computing, with Google and Apple's browsers capturing almost 85% of the world market as of April 2024. Citing internet engineer Leslie Daigle's 2019 policy brief, they note that consolidation is ossifying the internet's layered architecture and making incumbents harder to dislodge. Rewilding, drawn from ecology, is presented as a whole-systems framework for restoring diversity and competition.