So fast forward to present day - the arrival of citizen reporters (see third story down for a fine example) and read the report that nationally, newspaper circulation is down 2.1% and some big papers, like the Boston Globe have dropped nearly 4%.

It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out what's ahead:  The newspapers - with their op-ed pages and endorsements pulling the you-know-whats of elected officialdom will shortly find themselves deeply conflicted on the power of the Internet.  On the one hand the Constitutionally guarantees of a Free Press mean something.  But on the other, as circ falls, so does ad revenue, and soon the major media conglomerates will be begging for protective legislation.

With Internet2 making headlines about bandwidth ("Internet2 Breaks another speed record") the safest bet seems to be that I2 will be the domain of corporate and institutional players while the genuinely free-for-all that is internet1 will be relegated to stepchild status.

Heresy Indicator:  I expect newspapers will be all over in support of I2 being restricted to "commercial ventures"  That way, they'll be able to speak of "supporting free exchange of ideas" and at the same time, lock up the big pipe for their corporate profiteering.  Oh, and you know who pays for the pipe, right?  It's more of the "Do as we say, not as we do" approach to controlling society by the uberclassen.