> So who wins? Which type of power dominates in the coming decades?
Institutional power will win in the coming decades, but fringe power in the coming centuries as humans colonize the solar system. Each planet/moon will eventually have control of its technical infrastructure. In the coming millenia, as humans journey out to the stars, it will be almost impossible for one star system to control another. Thank God for the Speed of Light!
> Medieval feudalism evolved into a more balanced relationship in which lords had responsibilities as well as rights.
I'm not sure "evolve" is the best word. Diseases killed many surfs in both Europe and China, often many all at once (e.g. Black Death) which gave the survivors more power suddenly.
I think institutional power is on the wane. The fact that so many institutions are flexing their muscle is a prime indication. There's a saying "when you're taking flak you know you're over the target".
I'd say the biggest problem right now is one of awareness and direction. But as people become more atuned to these latent problems that are becoming more obvious it will drive ideas and action. Since the problem is not a lack of know how or resources, it's that growing awareness which will make all the difference.
Consider the amount of work that has gone into open source projects (like firefox, linux, apache, rails) and crowd sourced projects (like wikipedia or stack exchange). With the right kind of well directed projects the tables can, and will, be turned.
Imagine, for example, a web that was designed to prevent evesdropping and designed to ensure maximum longevity of content (through duplication). Something closer to bittorrent than today's web. It would be technologically challenging, but doable. Then imagine what happens if the equivalent of the worldwide workforce developing, say, linux was dedicated to developing tools to decentralize the network.
Over the next few decades the cost of wireless APs will become trivial even as their capabilities increase vastly. It won't take long before it's possible for unregulated internetworks with wireless backbones owned by many individuals to become possible, among many other innovations. At some point centralized control over communications becomes untenable. And that's just square one.
Institutional power will win in the coming decades, but fringe power in the coming centuries as humans colonize the solar system. Each planet/moon will eventually have control of its technical infrastructure. In the coming millenia, as humans journey out to the stars, it will be almost impossible for one star system to control another. Thank God for the Speed of Light!
> Medieval feudalism evolved into a more balanced relationship in which lords had responsibilities as well as rights.
I'm not sure "evolve" is the best word. Diseases killed many surfs in both Europe and China, often many all at once (e.g. Black Death) which gave the survivors more power suddenly.