2020 is the Year the Internet Happened

As we stand on the brick of what may be one of the most defining moments of our time, I have been pondering what the long term consequences of this pandemic will be. I will argue that we were not as digital as we think we are. Although it is not a perfect comparison, there are many similarities between what we are going through now and what people experienced during WW2. Just like the world change after that cataclysmic event, so too will our world change aster this one.

As more and more of us are social distancing (involuntary or voluntary), we are quickly developing new habits that are forced to move a considerable amount of our regular activities online. Most pertinently, it seems to me that the main consequences of all this isolation will be the fast and broad adoption of all kinds of digital-first solutions to problems. All this is to say that, once an event like this has occurred; there is no going back to how things used to be. Once we have learned and have adapted to the digital way of life, we will have little incentive or possibility to go back.

With many companies transitioning to remote work (albeit temporarily), we will experience accelerated adoption of various digital-first tools and online habits. I am not talking about more people working from home, but a large part of the traditional economy adjusting to digital variants; online education at every level of schooling, online socialization through new kinds of social networks, online health care, online grocery shopping, VR for work and entertainment. With less trust in volatile financial markets (perhaps as a backlash to globalism) we will experience a new wave of cryptocurrencies and technologies that really start to gain mass adoption.

Another quite exciting possibility as a result of this crisis is that we will be able to create global infrastructure, policies and technology that will enable us to stop almost any future pandemic early in its tracks before it had a chance to cause a lot of damage. If you think about it, this pandemic is mostly dangerous and hard to contain because we do not know who is infected and it is hard to control people’s movement unless you are in china with the case of 700mil, people will happily stay at home.

The digital transformation is just getting started. Too many, perhaps mostly for the young people, the internet feels sort of old already. We have social networks, online shopping, online gaming, online courses, etc. The promise of the internet has already been fulfilled. In truth, we are still living in what is mostly an analog-first world with the internet as a thin layer on top of it. When we have reached the peak of the digital transformation of a society, online shopping will simply be shopping, remote work will just be work, and online education will just be education.

Once we started taking classes online, we will not stop. Once we have gotten used to having our groceries delivered to us, we are not going to go back. Many changes to society we are experiencing now are likely to become permanent. What was need for this shift to take place is exactly what we are experiencing now. Perhaps this pandemic will turn out to be the tipping point that pushed us into the digital era.

To me, this is the positive spin on the 2020 pandemic. The promise of the internet is that anyone, such as a poor kid growing up in a rural town of a third- world country can get a modern education and access to the entire world’s knowledge. Perhaps this pandemic is what really pushes us into a world where the internet permits every level of society.