This reminds me of how geopoliticians wrote about the closure of uncolonized spaces around the turn of the last century. The Turner thesis looked at the effect

This reminds me of how geopoliticians wrote about the closure of uncolonized spaces around the turn of the last century. The Turner thesis looked at the effect of the open frontier on America and speculated in the political and economic consequences of the exhaustion of 'free' land. Halford Mackinder noted the closure of the final pieces of colonizable land and argued that conflicts between major powers would increase now that the safety valve of expansion was lost. Now that 'cyberspace' is facing the closure of free 'space' we are seeing similar arguments being put forward about the economic changes that we will face in the new political-economy of a closed Internet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Thesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Thesis