There are the various ISPs in the area, Atlantic Broadband in SoMD, for instance. But what do they provide? There's access, transit (whatever that is), domain registration, hosting services, colocation centers, etc.
If the internet is itself an integral part of the means of communication—which, of course it is—then it's a medium which is quite involved, highly technical, and of a size and scale which if it's a human scale then it's a human scale unlike man has ever seen.
Can it be said that the scale of the medium is, let's call it, so large as to be practically infinite?
What do I mean by the scale of the medium? Okay, let's simplify it. The scale of the medium of print—old fashioned ink and paper, not even Guttenburg—was relatively small. I'll call it a human scale. You needed paper, of some sort. Pen and ink. Sealing wax and seals (not flipper). Some scroll or binding means. Curriers. Post men. Scribes, monks. Tutors. Translators. Languages. Literacy. I'm sure I'm overlooking stuff, but you get the point. I'll call it a human scale. This scale likely still exists in the internet, more or less. But isn't it also a lot bigger? If so, it what way or how is it so much bigger? Can it's growth and development be said to have transcended the human scale? In a sense, not. It's a man made thing, after all.
Such a line of questioning also begs the question about the "human" scale of the older, print, medium. Aren't there ways in which it too was practically infinite in it's scale?
Another way to ask the fundamental question, how is the new medium fundamentally different from the old? And how is it the same? We're responsible for how we use it. I think it's important to make sure we understand, as best we can, what we're using.
How does the infinite scale of the new medium compare with the infinite scale of the old? Can one infinity be said to be more "human" than another? Or can one scale be more or less human? Is it the infinity or the scale, or neither or both that is or can be truly human?
