Internet Stop Working

The Internet has become a norm over the last few decades and now most of the world depends on it. Most of the critical systems from Media, Agriculture to Healthcare have a strong presence on the internet. So what could happen if the internet stopped working one day?

Life without internet

Over the cause of the last few years with the smartphone evolution, Lot depends on the internet. We order stuff online, Use social media, and most offices and shops now depend on the internet. All means of modern entertainment will have a devastating impact with an internet outage.

What would life be like without the internet?

If you are like most people you would get the smartphone in your hands as soon as you wake up (Be happy if you are not one of them :-)). Then you will start browsing for the latest updates and your daily works of yours. And search for the news. 

When there is no Internet, you have to memorize all your daily tasks and hear news via the radio. You will have to go look for stuff that you had at your fingertips.

The current pandemic has forced us to social distance. The Internet plays a major role to make this possible. There is a massive number of people working from home. People stay connected via the internet and most of all people can stay busy with all the social media and news feeds when they are locked indoors.

What would happen if the Internet collapsed?

There would be a lot of shakedown in the below fields:

• Stock markets
• IT enterprises
• Business organizations
• Communication sector
• News channels
• Social networks

The collapse of the Internet may be subject to various issues in various fields. Mainly it will affect the economy of the country. Currently, many countries have developed surrounding the Information technology industry. For a certain time, a shakedown will occur. People will wait hoping for a resolution. People will lose internet-based jobs. But with time communities will learn to survive without the internet. Humanity is all about adapting to situations. There will be a lot of struggle but things will get better and people will adapt to the new normal.

What industries would be profitable if the internet goes down?

While most fields could have a devastating effect from the internet outage, some industries could thrive. The best example is the pandemic lockdown period. Pharmaceutical companies selling various protective equipment, Internet service providers, and Certain software developers like Zoom, and Microsoft Teams could reach their all-time high profits.

Same with the Internet Certain industries could thrive.

Radio/TV stations : 

People will have to listen to the radio and watch TV. All the money focused on internet-based marketing would be redirected to these.

Magazines/Books :

More people will read and this will open a whole lot of new opportunities.

Home Gardening :

Most people spend an insane amount of time on the internet. This time will be focused on activities like home gardening and sports. So these industries could have opportunities as well.

Can the Internet Crash?

The internet is not stored in a single place. It is hosted on different servers around the world. The chances of a global internet outage would be minimal. To kill the internet it would need a total blackout. Events like EMP attacks, Solar flames could cause this. 

While the chances for a global internet outage are minimal, there have been numerous regional outages.

Below are multiple such incidences in the recent past.

In 2021 June there was an outage on several internet-based companies and their services were down for a certain time. The Financial Times, Reddit, Twitch, Amazon pages, and The Guardian sites were affected by this. While the companies claim this was due to a technical outage, this caused those company stocks to dip sharply.

Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/global-glitch-swaths-of-internet-go-down-after-cloud-outage-1.5460743

In May 2021 there was an attack on the Colonial Pipeline and it caused the company to shut one of the US’s major fuel delivery lines.

Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/7848118/colonial-pipeline-cyberattack-what-we-know/

In 2018 CenturyLink network failed and the cut of went off for around 2 days. During the outage, some areas in the US lost access to 911 calls, ATM withdrawals and issues said to have affected the health sector as well.

Source: https://www.bmc.com/blogs/network-outages/

How to prepare for an internet outage

Internet outage aside as a Prepper there are enough reasons for you to not depend solely on the internet and digital products. In a face of a crisis, the Mobile network and the power grid could be the first thing that goes out.

Keep a classical phone book. Keep your peer contacts written. You may also consider keeping an additional internet connection from a different service provider. It is better if this connection is wireless.

Consider adding the below to your Prepper stock :

• Telephone Directory
• A set of Ham radios
• Battery-Solar operated radios
• A printed map of your area 
• Candles 
• You can keep yourself and your family busy with a Few game boards and a few good books.

Also, you can read “How to filter water for survival”.