2030 Internet Crisis (Feeling the Bern)

The 2030 Internet Crisis, better known as the "Death of the Net," was a worldwide event that happened on November 17th, 2030, regarding the shutdown of the Internet by Chadian cyberterrorist group Alnihaya and the subsequent financial crisis.

Death of the Net
Alnihaya was founded in 2026 by Chadians  and , its primary goal was to bring developed countries, like the US, to the level of undeveloped/developing countries, like Chad. Alnihaya was primarily an anti-Net group, but over the next four years, they managed to find massive weaknesses in the way the Internet functioned. When they finally struck on November 17th, 2030, they sent out an artifically intelligent computer virus called "Alkaritha" that infected the entirety of the Internet within 31 minutes (according to a study by the FBI), overloading all servers and shut off others completely and permanently, it also caused the complete shutdown of all Internet satellites.

Financial Crisis
The financial crisis that occurred following the Internet shutdown was massive, much worse than the Great Recession. According to CBO, from November 17th, 2030 to November 17th, 2031, the US National GDP had dropped from 33 trillion to 30.8 trillion.

Aftermath
It took 22 years for the Internet to fully recover its 2030 capabilities, and 10 for it to recover at least some, miniscule, ability, and even then only 58% of the "Old Era Internet" survived.

Industries
In the Internet's place, many shadowed industries were revived to their 80s and 90s extent, including the toy, disc, theater, and television industries. Disc rental stores, such as Blockbuster, also made a remarkable come back. DVR sets also made a comeback. With the revival of the disc industry, a successor to the BluRay (the dominant disc of the 2010s and 2020s) was developed by, called. Credit cards and cash money, once at risk of being replaced by digital wallets and cryptocurrency, maintain their dominance, thanks to paranoia of another crash, leaving cryptocurrency and digital paying practically dead amongst the average citizen. Amongst other industries that died included of the PC Gaming Industry (due to its heavy reliance on online sales, it was hard to return to 90s-styled PC gaming, due to the graphics and ability of video game consoles being way more capable and closer to those of PCs. Indie developers would make the move to video game consoles) and e-commerce. It was also the final nail in the smartphone industry coffin, adding as an industry to the injury that was the 2024 Mobile Gaming Crash.

Due to the nature of making videos on YouTube, most videos on YouTube survived and content creators would release their old content (then unaccessible due to no internet) on discs, to allow the public to regain access to these videos. Video streaming would essentially die out, but some streamers, usually gamers, struck deals with television companies to make live content.

Original productions produced by streaming services, such as Disney+, Netflix, or Hulu, would also be released on discs.

The music industry was also hugely affected. Without music downloads and online streaming, music has begin to return to the traditional disc format that was common in the late 20th century. Many underground musical artists will return to being undiscovered and the only way to get access to music is through CD sales in major big box stores and on traditional, terrestrial local radio. Satellite radio that is not connected to the internet will become popular as it is the only outlet for a diverse music selection outside of the internet. The music in the big box stores and on the terrestrial radio will only be from major labels and any indie/underground labels will become localized once again.

Physical print materials such as books, magazines, and newspapers will make a comeback as well. People will begin to return to public libraries for access to physical media instead a place for free Wi-Fi access. In the internet era, many people were getting their news and other information from the internet instead of traditional newspapers. This will cause a decline in the alternative media which will make people less polarized and more centralized with their political beliefs as their news input with come from the mainstream media only.

Companies
E-commerce crashed along with the internet, playing a major role in the 2030 Internet Economic Crisis. Many e-commerce companies failed to survive, with Alibaba being a notable casuality. Amazon, eBay, and Esty however did. Beforehand, Amazon had filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and only survived thanks to government bailout. Though, due to this, they had to spin off Zappos (which adopted the AmazonGo brick-and-mortar stores and fitted them into Zappos stores) and WholeFoods. Many subsidiaries were shut down including Amazon Drive (which before it did, sent out USB drives of what their account held to each user, similar to what Google did regarding its Drive and Email services, before it went bankrupt), and Amazon was forced to downsize, selling off all facilities. Amazon, as of 2050, was a delivery company a la FedEx and UPS. Together with Alibaba, its headquarters  were taken over, and refitted into malls, named after their former owners. The most prominent being the Amazon Heritage Mall in Seattle, and the Jack Ma Alibaba Mall in Hangzhou. As aforementioned, eBay survived but went under numerous changes and was eventually bought out by in 2043. It was renamed to EZAuction in 2046, and in 2048, it opened its first physical operation, completing the transitioning from an online auctionhouse to a physical auctionhouse chain.

The 2030 Internet Crisis marked an end to the Retailpocalypse, the effects there-of being reversed due to physical stores and franchises and malls being revived in the gap of e-commerce. Chains that benefited from this include of most physical retailers that survived the Retailpocalypse, including but not limited to Barnes & Noble, JCrew, J.C. Penney, Many once online brands/companies re-established themselves as physical stores or sold their products in already established chains, these include of Spotify (as a music store), Etsy (chain of stores where one can easily sell their own handmade products, with Etsy taking 7.5% of the profits),

Societal
The "Death of the Net" led to promotion of alternatives to online technology in fear of an event of something like this happening again.

A major event occurring as a result of the Death of the Net was the Great Reunion, mostly during the late 2030s and early to mid 2040s. It refers to a mass return of Millennials and Centennials (Gen Z) to their childhood towns to reconnect with lost friends. This happened primarily as a result of the collapse of social media, that came with the Death of the Net, and thus lost of communication over a large area. This also is attributed to the return of landline phones to dominance and traditional 80s-90s era cell phones that do not have internet capabilities.

The culture of the 2040s is often called a hybrid of 2010s nostalgia, and return to elements of 70s-90s culture.