P2N2

Subheading: The Edge is the Essence of the Internet.

Almost all advanced internet users understand that the internet initially started as a proprietary computer facility for scientific research and military intelligence exchange, and gradually developed into a global computer network accessible and created by everyone. However, in the process of this development, a tremendous transformation has taken place in the vast reality where the internet is rooted, due to the rapid development of the internet. This transformation has allowed even the most ordinary people to have access to the internet and the opportunity to connect with the world. At the same time, this also means that these people, as users who can only access the surface level of the internet, the edge users of the internet, are extremely important.

"Ordinary People"? "Edge Users"?#

To say that ordinary internet users are equivalent to edge users is not comprehensive. It should be said that a considerable portion of edge users are ordinary people. Some seemingly ordinary people in reality may actually be core users of the internet (such as personal website owners, who are typical of those closely connected to the operation center of the internet), while some people who are clearly successful in reality may encounter great difficulties in using the internet, to the point where they can only use applications like TikTok, passively receiving content, treating the internet as a large-scale television network. This situation is common among young people who were once full of energy and now among aging elderly people.

Therefore, when discussing the issue of edge users, we cannot simply define the edge of the internet as the edge or disadvantaged side of society, as this is unreasonable. The so-called edge of the internet, since it is called the edge, must correspond to a "center." If the edge is in remote areas, then where is this "center"? Is it in international first-class cities? Obviously, this is also inappropriate. Taking the elderly as an example again, elderly people in cities are not necessarily more proficient in using the internet than their peers in rural areas. They are still edge-level users. On the other hand, young people in rural areas may be more professional in using the internet than young people in cities, as they need to create websites for entrepreneurial purposes.

The "center of the internet" cannot be defined as a specific geographical location, but rather an abstract and logical position. (The concept of the edge is naturally the same.) It should refer to the content closely related to the basic principles of the internet, such as various sciences or various internet arts. In other words, whatever creates and enriches more than 90% of the content on the internet is the center of the internet. Just open Github.com and look at the developers with the highest number of commits, there is no need to ask, they are members of the internet core. People in the center of the internet, what they contribute to the internet far exceeds what they absorb from the internet. And if you look at the usage statistics on the phones of the elderly, and see how much time they spend on TikTok, you will understand that this is a typical edge user - they contribute almost no content to the internet (except for the privacy data stolen by these apps), but they consume a large amount of content from the internet. What truly makes them complete edge users is not the large amount of content they consume from the internet, but the fact that they hardly remember or think about this content. If they engage in memory and thinking, they are still considered more advanced internet users, at least using the internet as a powerful tool for their work. For the latter group, besides killing time and promoting dopamine secretion, the internet has no benefits, so they are the true edge users. Being at the edge of the internet, the warmth emanating from the internet's center is difficult to reach them, and the latest technology is almost beyond their reach. They also do not know how to use the internet to voice themselves and fight for their rights.

For developers who are familiar with advanced internet technology, the term "edge" often reminds them of CDN nodes or edge computing, which they consider to be close to users. But if a person is constantly enjoying services that are closest to them through "edge" nodes, doesn't it mean that they are also far from the center of the internet?

So the definition of edge users is clear. They are those who use the internet as a large-scale cable television network and are distant from the high-tech internet. Due to their low presence on the internet and in reality, they are often misunderstood as being ordinary.

Ordinary Creates Power, Edge is Unprecedentedly Important#

At this point, it is natural to feel that edge users are pitiful. But why are edge users so important even though they have the least presence and should be forgotten?

If we were still in the era of television, radio, and newspapers, this idea might be correct. After all, in those days, ordinary people, or what we now call edge users, couldn't find a way to express themselves. In that case, it would be better to conform to the norm and downplay their existence. However, with the advent of the internet, and even if the fate of software development has changed from "making money and science" to "using technology to achieve social goals," this situation can no longer be maintained. "I can endure darkness because I have seen the sunlight." Before the internet was born or entered the public's view, the ordinary people who couldn't see the "center" could deceive themselves and think they were the center of the world. But once they saw the center of the internet and realized that they had been pushed to the edge, far away from the center, and could only watch short videos on their phones every day, gradually losing their memory and thinking abilities, it became a great torment. For the elderly, who have already lost their desire to express themselves, this may not be a very obvious problem. But what about young edge users? Their ordinariness prevents them from showcasing themselves online, or they are accustomed to being ordinary and dare not express themselves online. Moreover, they have to face the huge risk of online violence. The current development goal of the internet is obviously not to torment people but to give them hope and provide channels. Therefore, what edge users are experiencing now is clearly contradictory to the purpose of the internet. Even for the sake of "justice," a false and empty declaration, it is necessary to recognize the important position of edge users.

A large portion of edge users are ordinary people, and this is the key. Another name for ordinary people is the people, and the people are the largest foundation. The internet infrastructure (fiber optics, base stations, switches, etc.) provided as a public service to remote areas is the material foundation for these ordinary people to become edge users, giving them the possibility to use the internet to voice themselves and fight for their rights. When these edge users fight for their rights through the internet, they are actually helping to achieve better public interests. However, the presence of this infrastructure does not mean that all problems are solved. Because providing the possibility for edge users to use the internet to fight for their rights does not mean that edge users, with their numerical advantage and basic living conditions, can necessarily become the mainstream voice on the internet. On the contrary, because they are far from the center of the internet, they don't understand this or that, and at most, they can only be "television receivers." They can only receive and not contribute, unable to change anything. This means that the situation of public interest cannot be reflected back to the entire internet through the edge. To put it lightly, the difficulty for edge users to use the internet to fight for their rights will affect the plans to achieve social goals through technological means and disrupt the process of internet fairness. To be more alarmist, it may lead to serious crises and unfairness. Therefore, it is crucial to let edge users voice themselves. If center users want to voice themselves on the internet, even if they face resistance, they can find various high-tech methods to counter it. However, the better ones among edge users can only perform the simplest user interface-level interactions, and the severe limitations they face in using the internet put them in an important position at a critical juncture.

Even if edge users do not want to fight for their rights through the internet, it does not mean that they are not important. During the era of health codes, countless elderly people were excluded because they did not know how to use a mobile phone. Are they really completely unfamiliar with the internet? Absolutely not, they are just being marginalized. It's the same viewpoint - they can only watch and not use, only enjoy services from the nearest CDN nodes, without caring about how it works, and the result is a serious obstacle in their lives. It may not be obvious for young people, but for the elderly, the rapidly changing internet has actually become a challenge for survival. As those who have made significant contributions to society and as beneficiaries of the internet who are slightly older, they should not only enjoy the convenience of the internet, but also the basic conveniences of life. Doesn't this not only indicate that they should be cared for, but also that they are urgently in need of this care - in other words, they are important?

That's how edge users are. They are ordinary and they have power. But because of their position at the edge, this power cannot reach the world of the internet, and that is a tragedy. To let their power reach the entire internet world is truly important.

How to Treat Edge Users#

There has been a great deal of debate on how to treat edge users. Indeed, this debate is very valuable. Because the specific strategies for dealing with this group of edge users should not be a one-size-fits-all approach.

One approach is to downplay the internet in the perspective of edge users. I believe that this may be the most effective solution for elderly users. By downplaying the internet in the perspective of edge users, it does not mean that they should be completely excluded from the internet or stop browsing short videos, for example. Instead, it means that the internet should penetrate their lives in a more "friendly" way, achieving "indirect benefits." The pain point for edge users is the high threshold of the internet, so it is better to bypass the gate directly. What does that mean? Let's take the health code as an example. If elderly users really don't know how to use their phones to open various complex functions, why not just issue a health card for them to carry around and swipe everywhere? Don't say that this method is costly, there is no low-cost solution for epidemic prevention, most smartphones come with NFC, printing a few NFC cards won't cost much, and there are server costs for health codes anyway. By swiping the card and then synchronizing the data to the internet, the benefits of the internet can immediately reach the elderly users. And this also has benefits for epidemic prevention itself because even young people often encounter situations where health codes cannot be opened. By swiping the card, data can be synchronized regularly, avoiding the problem of excessive data volume or service downtime caused by malicious refreshing. There are many benefits and no downsides. Another pain point for edge users is the inability to maintain their rights through the internet. At this point, instead of teaching edge users how to use the internet to protect their rights, it is better to regulate the power of traditional media, make them work properly, and not be lazy, so that the suggestion box does not become a waste. This will also have another benefit: after the non-internet or non-public internet channels for safeguarding rights are broadened, the number of negative messages published on the public internet should decrease significantly. This is not only beneficial for edge users but also for center users, as the reduction of malicious information on the internet will bring them peace of mind. And these rights protection information transmitted offline can be handled within the internet and related entities through more privacy-friendly methods, which can actually greatly improve efficiency.

Another approach, which is more widely accepted, is to make efforts to bring edge users into the center of the internet. Although this approach may face significant resistance in the short term, it has great long-term benefits. During the pandemic, there were many projects teaching the elderly how to use health codes for work or how to use WeChat to communicate with their children through videos or manuals. One of the most typical projects is the self-organized project initiated by Topbook. It is considered typical not because it benefits the most people, but because it sets a precedent for unifying the most edge users of the internet and the most central technology of the internet. Because self-organization and decentralization are very modern concepts that the older generation has never heard of. But now, these advanced concepts are being used correctly to serve the so-called "low-end population." And this process actually conforms to the correct purpose of science. After all, isn't science supposed to benefit the majority of people in the end? However, this project also has limitations. First, the decentralization is not complete, as it still relies on certain specific cloud services, but this is not a major problem. The bigger problem is that although this project is established for the benefit of edge users, the related documents are not directly written for edge users to read. On the contrary, due to the complexity of the project workflow, it is actually prepared for intermediate and even central internet users, and uses the power of these users to indirectly influence edge users through other non-internet means. This approach requires a lot of patience and is often difficult to succeed because the thinking of the elderly may be slower, making it difficult for them to handle complex learning. But it cannot be denied that this approach of bringing edge users closer to the center is very effective for young people. A typical example is various online computer science courses. As long as edge users actively seek them out, these tutorials are not difficult to find. Through learning, they can have a clearer understanding of the internet, thus getting closer to the center of the internet, being able to contribute to the cause that benefits the public through the internet, and in this process, benefiting themselves from the internet.

In addition to these methods, free software and concepts like WEB3 should also do something to improve the internet experience for edge users. The edge will always exist. The real solution is not to eliminate the edge, but to allow people on the edge to live happily as before. Having elderly people review program source code may sound like science fiction, but from a different perspective, allowing them to enjoy programs that have been reviewed through source code is already benefiting the elderly edge users. Making elementary school students who are addicted to short videos realize the importance of focusing on their homework may seem too idealistic, but from another perspective, by teaching rebellious young people about WEB3 through classroom education, it may not be as difficult as imagined to generate interest in the same rebellious WEB3. In fact, the decentralization of the internet is not limited to the decentralization of network architecture. It is truly making the internet an ordinary, universally accessible technology for everyone, regardless of their opportunities, and making it beneficial to every edge user, so that they don't have to leave the edge - because there is no center in the online world. Although supporters of free software, decentralization, and internet edge users may seem unrelated - everyone will have a day when they can't keep up with the times - the elderly people who are currently trapped in the complexity of using WeChat, for example, may have learned and mastered everything in their time, and were the most progressive young people; but everyone will have a time when they can't catch up with their dreams - those who are now lost in short videos may have had a grand ambition to become a scientist, and the internet should have given them the opportunity to fulfill their wishes, but it has become the last straw that breaks the camel's back. In conclusion, if the glorious cause of the internet wants to continue, it must first benefit the edge users of the internet. This is the true meaning of technology.