Have you ever imagined what will happen to the world you live in, if all of a sudden the internet shuts down today? The consequences seem terrible, right? If we take a wild guess then maybe life would just be over for a lot of people. If not then it would definitely bel meaningless. But leaving the personal feelings aside, what about the economic crisis that internet shutdowns can bring to any country?
Not very long ago, this idea in fact became a reality when Iran did experience a week-long shutdown in November 2019. As the reason for it turned out to be an exertion of suppression by the authorities in order to stop the continuing protests - related to the increase in gasoline prices because of sanctions against the country, the total amount of economic damage to the Islamic state has been around $61 million per day according to the Netblock’s Cost of Shutdown Tool. It was just another nail in the coffin that Iran really didn’t have to bear considering the current situation, the country seems to be trapped into.
But wait, as some of you would be more concerned about the more developed countries - with this popular belief that being developed also means more advanced internet and more dependency on being online, Netblocks has some interesting statistics for you in that regard as well. Together with World Bank, ITU, EuroStat, U.S Census and Cost of Shutdown Tool they have calculated the massive economic consequences that countries like the United States, China or even UK have to bear. These estimates are based on daily economic costs, if the internet shuts down nationwide and millions would be just be a start for one day.
Chart courtesy of: Statista.
Read next: Even your Bachelor’s Degree can’t compete with the latest trend of jobs towards Artificial Intelligence
Not very long ago, this idea in fact became a reality when Iran did experience a week-long shutdown in November 2019. As the reason for it turned out to be an exertion of suppression by the authorities in order to stop the continuing protests - related to the increase in gasoline prices because of sanctions against the country, the total amount of economic damage to the Islamic state has been around $61 million per day according to the Netblock’s Cost of Shutdown Tool. It was just another nail in the coffin that Iran really didn’t have to bear considering the current situation, the country seems to be trapped into.
But wait, as some of you would be more concerned about the more developed countries - with this popular belief that being developed also means more advanced internet and more dependency on being online, Netblocks has some interesting statistics for you in that regard as well. Together with World Bank, ITU, EuroStat, U.S Census and Cost of Shutdown Tool they have calculated the massive economic consequences that countries like the United States, China or even UK have to bear. These estimates are based on daily economic costs, if the internet shuts down nationwide and millions would be just be a start for one day.
Chart courtesy of: Statista.
Read next: Even your Bachelor’s Degree can’t compete with the latest trend of jobs towards Artificial Intelligence
