I thiiiink this is a world where the great fiber stringing of the 90s and dot-com boom didn't happen. There are still thousands of miles (and even more kilometers!) of fiberoptic cable running from town to town that's never been activated because the infrastructure was put in place then various entities disappeared and/or focused elsewhere but still, the stuff that went online is much of our backbone and doesn't seem to exist in this world.Dang! That’s an interesting interpetation. All that fibre won’t rot nor rust away. I read the nonfiction book, TUBES, and your musings jive with it. Good call,eh.
Does that sound right to anyone else, that this is an alternate history where the dot com boom didn't happen? Or did I misunderstand?
I didn't really understand why they couldn't get news from other cities. People seem free to come and go as they please, and other cities are referenced to exist. Looking at how quickly people have become dependent on their phones today, I can't imagine people would be very willing to function with out the AI after being raised on it.