The underground railway is a miracle that is not appreciated in the world. In 1863, it was invented by London-based private entrepreneurs who wanted to make money to transport suburban commuters to work, quickly spreading around the world. One of the reasons to visit the New York Transit Museum is that it not only reminds you of the impressive city’s subway (opened in 1904), but it’s what all the underground railroads are. Sadly, this also provides a striking reminder that progress is not always inevitable. For those who consider the future of another great wonder of the modern world (the open public internet), the example of the Metro shows that it may be closer to its peak than we think.
Time travelers from New York in 1946 (the year when their subway peaked passengers, this number was never equal), which would find the modern version very similar. (I would say “easy to navigate,” but of course, the New York Metro has never been easy to navigate.) Since then, the network hasn’t changed essentially: it’s just grim and has been invested in infrastructure for decades.
By contrast, peers once laughed at – in the ads of absent from 24-hour service in Paris, this is an ad – continuing to break the record of passenger volume into the 21st century (although their numbers have been sensational since the pandemic). As a result, their services continue to grow. Travelers in Tokyo, Milan, Paris or London are also finding more services and routes when starting their journey, while travelers in New York are still having a hard time from Queens to Brooklyn. Don't get me wrong, the subway is still a miracle of the world: however, it is ultimately a network that hasn't reached its full potential yet.
Why does this happen and what does it have to do with the Internet? Three things that hinder New York’s underground also threaten our commitment to online networks. First, innovations elsewhere. Since the heyday of the subway, the cost of owning a car has dropped, and the races faced by the underground rail have become even stronger. (In most parts of England, a similar story behind the decline of buses.)
Innovation that threatens the internet is not a competitor: it is the emergence of dangerous new predators that make it risky to use it. It is much easier to be deeply hit or fooled by misinformation or lose financial situations due to fraud or identification theft. The bad news about the Internet is that these innovations are also difficult to detect and escape. All types of fraud corrupt social trust and make the Internet much less and less.
This is closely related to the second thing that hinders the subway: crime. The scale of the problem is often exaggerated, but last year, 10 people were murdered on the New York subway. Here, some politicians have exacerbated the problem: a part of the left has long been naive about crime, public transport and wider cohesion of the community.
In contrast, the Internet’s crime problem is not because administrators are unaware: Just ask the concerns of those involved or law enforcement officers. But they lack the tools to fight against increasingly powerful, more complex threats.
This leads to a third problem with the subway and the internet: dysfunctional and incoordinated leadership. New York's transportation was cursed by a network of multiple governors: the city and state did not work well together, exacerbating the system's problems.
Likewise, the ability to truly combat digital crime involves a certain level of international cooperation, which seems far from justified. What I hear from state and private cybersecurity professionals is that they have successfully tracked criminals to their residences, but are located deep in another country. (A law enforcement official recently complained that their choice in fraud is often to “do nothing, or launch a land war in Russia.”) This problem will get worse unless or until more cooperation is done on global cooperation to fight fraud.
This is not to say we will stop using the internet. After all, we still use the New York Metro, although the facts are not as big as they should be, they are not clean and they are not as safe. But those 1946 dreams for the subway have not been confirmed in the past 80 years. There seems to be a good chance that the Internet in 2105 will have the same problem.
stephen.bush@ft.com