I propose a new internet

The old internet is so predictable and boring now.  Honestly, it's time for a new one that actually works and is better in every single way.  Here are my ideas for this Second Internet.  (“We've had one internet, yes, but how about Second Internet?”)

    IPv200.  People have been crying and bawling about how the sky is falling and the internet is going to run out of IP addresses for years and years now.  (Seriously, I first heard we are just about to run out of addresses way back around 2000, and it's now 2020 and we're still doing fine, apparently.)  So fine, for these alarmists, I am introducing IPv200, which is a much more advanced version of the proposed IPv6 that people have been wanting to replace IPv4 with for a long time.  IPv200's addresses will be 256 24-bit addresses represented in octal, separated by the emoji symbol for thumbs up.  This is much better than IPv4's 4 8-bit separated by dots, and IPv6's eight groups of 16-bit hex numbers.  This way, every single atom of the universe can have an IP address.  (I don't know if this is true, but the math sounds about right.  If it's not, it's close enough, right?)

    A separate internet space for porn.  So many people complain that their kids see porn on the internet and office workers are constantly looking for porn, so porn will now legally be required to be on Second Internet II: Porn Edition, which much be specifically opted in to by each person viewing it.  People violating the rule of not posting porn on Second Internet Prime (the non-Porn Edition) will be fined $666,696,969 per violation, and all of that money will be given to me, completely tax-free, because I came up with this idea and I deserve it.

    Since people just search for sites now, domain names will no longer be a thing, and all sites will be accessed via their IPv200 address.  This will end the stupid domain name wars and all the registration garbage; all one needs is server space and internet access to host a site since there are so many IPv200 addresses.  A special exemption will be given to DuckDuckGo which will be allowed to retain its domain as well as the short version ddg.gg so people can easily get to a search engine.  No other search engines will be allowed a domain name, and if you want to use Google, for example, you will need to either bookmark it or search for it on DuckDuckGo.

    Memes must now be approved by a special Meme Commission made up of the elders of the internet who remember such memes as Beowulf Cluster and CowboyNeal.  People posting unapproved memes will be fined over nine thousand dollars, and again, all this money comes to me.

    The following things are forbidden: content delivery networks, tracking cookies, ads, any multimedia content besides images and animated GIFs embedded into the webpage alone (any other multimedia content must be downloadable), and any streaming garbage where you aren't able to download and use how you want to use whatever content.

    Second Internet does not recognize or allow for any unfairly long copyright; copyrighted material must be released into the public domain after fourteen years with no exception and no complaints, and can therefore be downloaded without any penalty.  Other material still under copyright can still be used in limited ways, such as commentary or parody, but otherwise, copyrighted material may still be enforced.

    Second Internet is not censored (with the exception that all porn must be put on Porn Edition); however, posting a known lie on it is forbidden, and there is a $1 billion fine for posting one.  This means that all major news networks and all major political parties are forbidden from using Second Internet.  Unlike the other fees, this money will put into a large pit and burned while the person or corporation who told the lie is forced to watch it burn.

    Given the above, it is therefore required that Second Internet (and Second Internet II: Porn Edition) provide humanity with every piece of media created more than fourteen years old at all times, because damn it, I want to watch older movies without having to be behind seven proxies or paying actual money to not even own my own copy of it.  Holy hell, music was the first media that companies cried about over being able to download and share, but guess what we can do with even purchased music now, that we can't do with movies?

    A slow but required transition from the WWW to the vastly superior Gopher.

    Mobile Second Internet cannot cost ridiculous amounts of money to get a horribly limited amount of data.  Approximately $30/month for unlimited data seems way more than fair.

    Consoles are forbidden from accessing Second Internet; Second Internet is a PC Master Race internet only.  Consoles shouldn't be a half-assed version of a PC anyway and should be like the consoles of old — simple devices with simple, complete games.

    No browsers are allowed to do any more than simple browsing functionality.  Any browser that accesses Second Internet that tries to pull the crap Chrome and even Firefox pulls with sending information about your browsing over the internet (no matter how much they say it's non-identifying — haha, right) will be banned from Second Internet.  Also, all browsers must have a chicken as part of its logo, because...

    The Second Internet's mascot is a chicken.  Because chickens are awesome.

(Originally published 10 February 2020)