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Today, the smartphone has become not just a means of communication but also the main tool for accessing the digital world. On average, a modern person spends at least five hours a day on their phone, and about six and a half hours online. We practically live on social media, in apps, and through online services. Even the way we communicate by phone is gradually changing: physical SIM cards are becoming less necessary, and technologies like eSIM already allow you to connect to mobile networks without a plastic card, including services such as signal virtual number.
In this increasingly virtual world, even more profound changes may take place in the coming years.
The Dead Internet: When AI Takes Over the Web
The theory of the “dead Internet” has been around and gaining popularity for almost a decade. Moreover, some of its adherents believe that the Internet is already effectively dead when it comes to content.
The basic idea behind the theory is that we will not be able to distinguish content created on the web by bots and artificial intelligence from content created by humans. Soon, the volume of algorithm-generated content may become so large that human-created posts and images will be drowned out. Similarly, it will become impossible to distinguish genuine information from fake content, and authentic images, videos, and audio recordings from deepfakes.
The theory has a fairly long history. The theory was first discussed by a user named Illuminati Pirate on the 4chan message board at the end of the 2010s. According to him, the Internet had already died by 2017. In 2021, this anonymous person published an article titled “The Theory of the Dead Internet: Most of the Internet is Fake” on another niche message board.
The main argument made by proponents of the theory is the explosive growth of web traffic generated by bots. By the end of 2023, half of all Internet traffic was generated by bots and automated systems. According to proponents of the theory, in the coming years, potentially reaching 90% by 2030, the share of automated traffic may exceed 90%, and we will lose the ability to distinguish it from content created by humans without the help of AI tools.
Proponents of the theory believe that AI-generated content will simply overwhelm people’s real communication and turn the Internet into a system designed to influence people’s decisions, from purchasing products to voting for particular candidates.
The Race for an Ultra-Fast Internet
The main thing we want from the Internet is speed. We want everything to move as fast as possible. At the same time, many of the network cables that carry Internet traffic were installed around the world 25–30 years ago and are rapidly becoming obsolete.As a result, a significant slowdown in Internet speeds in different countries could become a permanent reality, not solely because of government policies.
At the same time, there is reason to believe that ultra-fast Internet is possible without completely replacing the existing transmission infrastructure.
In 2024, Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology set a remarkable record. Scientists achieved a data transfer rate of 402 Tbps over commercially available fiber-optic cables. This result was 25% faster than previous records and increased the capacity of the fiber by 35%. Typical Internet speeds worldwide are roughly 500 to 1,000 times slower.
The main achievement of these “samurai of the Internet” is that they achieved such high speeds using technologies that are already available to Internet service providers worldwide. This includes the use of copper cables. If it is possible to extend the service life of fiber-optic networks using new optical technologies and next-generation systems, which appears to be quite realistic, Internet speeds could be increased even further than in Japan.
Quantum Computers: The Next Digital Revolution
The development of quantum computers could also radically change the Internet. In late 2025, scientists from the University of Science and Technology of China became the second team in the world, after Google, to stabilize the operation of a quantum system as the number of qubits increased. A qubit is a unit of information in a quantum computer, just as a bit is a unit of information in a conventional computer.
Chinese scientists have created a Zuchongzhi 3.2 superconducting quantum processor. It has begun correcting errors—distortions in qubits that interfere with the proper operation of quantum computers. These errors are extremely difficult to correct. In addition, correcting them can often introduce new errors. The Chinese researchers managed to make the system more stable, without error correction introducing new failures.
According to Chinese researchers, their processor opens a realistic path toward building stable quantum computers with hundreds of thousands or even millions of qubits capable of solving problems that are fundamentally beyond the reach of the most powerful conventional computers.
The End of the Smartphone as We Know It
According to Elon Musk, AI will eventually replace all jobs involving computer-based data processing in the coming years.
Musk also believes that by 2030, mobile phones will cease to exist in their current form — as devices that run operating systems and install applications. These devices will only display images and play sound.
Musk said that conventional mobile apps will disappear entirely. All interactions people have with banks, online retailers, and other organizations will be anticipated and handled in real time by artificial intelligence.
There is no guarantee that all these predictions will come true, or that these technologies will work exactly as predicted and produce the expected results. But one thing is certain: the coming years will not be boring for the Internet and mobile communications.
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IPwithease is aimed at sharing knowledge across varied domains like Network, Security, Virtualization, Software, Wireless, etc.
