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Legend held that the digital republics started off as businesses. That people had chosen to become netizens of this or that republic. That in the early days you could hold a passport for as many republics as you liked, or wander freely online with no passport at all. It all seemed like some kind of pirate utopia, and nobody really believed it.
It could be worse though. The same old stories say that there used to be territorial republics that put up border fences around pieces of the world. People would have an account made with the republic whose claimed territory they were in when they were born, or the republic their parents had an account with. Sometimes they were allowed to have an account with more than one republic at a time, but it involved paying off the right people and submitting a lot of forms, and some republics just didn't allow it.
That part of the story is just as hard to believe, when for as long as anyone can remember, people have arrived in a new place and set up an account with the local public services network. The idea of having to choose one public service network for life, or them being able to decide who can and can't travel in the area their services cover, just seems weird. Who would put up with a system like that?
This story is licensed under CC-BY-NC. You can share it freely, but if you want to use it in anything commercial, you need my permission.
Legend held that the digital republics started off as businesses. That people had chosen to become netizens of this or that republic. That in the early days you could hold a passport for as many republics as you liked, or wander freely online with no passport at all. It all seemed like some kind of pirate utopia, and nobody really believed it.
It could be worse though. The same old stories say that there used to be territorial republics that put up border fences around pieces of the world. People would have an account made with the republic whose claimed territory they were in when they were born, or the republic their parents had an account with. Sometimes they were allowed to have an account with more than one republic at a time, but it involved paying off the right people and submitting a lot of forms, and some republics just didn't allow it.
That part of the story is just as hard to believe, when for as long as anyone can remember, people have arrived in a new place and set up an account with the local public services network. The idea of having to choose one public service network for life, or them being able to decide who can and can't travel in the area their services cover, just seems weird. Who would put up with a system like that?
This story is licensed under CC-BY-NC. You can share it freely, but if you want to use it in anything commercial, you need my permission.
