What the New York subway tells us about the future of the Internet

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The underground railway is a wonderful wonder in the world. Invented by private entrepreneurs in London in 1863, they sought to earn money by transporting suburban travelers to work, spread quickly around the world. One of the reasons for visiting the New York Traffic Museum is that not only is the impressive that was an effort of the city metro (opened in 1904), but also what is a achievement all underground railways. Unfortunately, it also provides a reminder that progress is not always inevitable. For those who contemplate the future of another great wonder in the modern world, the open and public public internet, the example of the subway suggests that it can be closer to its peak than we think.

A New York Time Traveler in 1946, the year when its subway reached the maximum pilot, a figure that has never equalized, would find the modern version notably similar. (I would say “easy to navigate”, but of course, the New York subway has never been easy to navigate.) The network has not been materially altered since then: it is considerably more dim and suffers from low -investment decades in infrastructure.

Instead, the companions who mocked, an announcement at its peak, went to the absence of 24 -hour service in Paris, have continued to break down the records for driving in the 21st century (although with blows to their number from pandemic). As a result, their services have continued to grow. The same time as the traveler in Tokyo, Milan, Paris or London would find many more services and lines than when they started their trip, while New York would still fight to arrive from Queens to Brooklyn. I am not mistaken, the subway is still wonderful in the world: but it is also, in short, a network that has not yet experienced its full potential.

Why did this happen and what can you have to do with the Internet? Three things that have retained the New York underground also threaten the promise of our online network. The first is innovation elsewhere. Since the subway time, the cost of having a car has dropped and, therefore, the competition faced with underground railways has become stronger. (A similar story is behind the decline of buses to much of England.)

Innovation that threatens the Internet is not a competitor: it is the appearance of new dangerous predators who use it at risk. It is much easier to be fooled by Deepfakes or misinformation, or losing financially due to fraud or identifying theft. The bad news for the Internet is that these innovations are also more difficult to detect and evade. The fraud of all kinds corros social confidence and makes the Internet less rewarding.

This is closely linked to the second thing that the subway has reproached: the crime. The scale of the problem is often exaggerated, but still, last year there were 10 people murdered in the New York subway. Here, some politicians have aggravated the problem: some parts of the left have been naive due to the crime problem, how corrosive is public transport and community cohesion more.

However, the problem of the crime on the Internet is not because the administrators do not take into account: ask anyone involved both in moderation and in compliance with the law how much they are concerned. But they do not have the tools to continue to fight an increasingly powerful and sophisticated threat.

This involves a third problem for both the metro and the Internet: dysfunctional and non -coordinated leadership. Transportation to New York has been cursed as a network with several governors: the city and the state have not worked well, aggravating system problems.

In the same way, the ability to combat digital crime really involves a degree of international cooperation that seems far from plausible right now. A common complaint I listen to both state -of -the -art and private cybersecurity professionals have successfully followed criminals at their address, but the address is in another country. (A law official has recently complained that his options for combating fraud were often “doing nothing or starting a land war in Russia” unless or until there is no more global cooperation in the fight against fraud, this problem will get worse.

This does not mean that we will stop using the Internet. After all, we still use the New York subway, despite the fact that it is not as great as it should be, neither as clean nor as sure. But the dreams of 1946 are what the subway would be like in the 80 years that have not been rejected. It seems more than likely that the Internet in 2105 has the same problem.

Stephen.bush@ft.com