The United States has for the most part been considered the leader in all things technological although many would rightly argue that it lost that leadership edge when it comes to the hardware end of things. Even with that slippage though it was felt that at least it still lead the field when it came to the software and internet technologies.

As much as we might like to comfort ourselves with that idea one has to ask why is it that the majority of technological countries outside of the US and Canada have faster broadband access than we do. Why is it in these two countries the users are being traffic shaped and yet the major players still pile on the profits all the while telling us that the speeds we have are the best that we can get. What kind  of leadership is this other than one of profits before the consumer.

Now according to a post by Duncan Riley that reports on an interview by Thomas Crampton with Ogilvy China’s Kaiser Kuo we may also be losing the leadership in software as well.

In the interview Kuo claims that a Chinese P2P file network is 50x faster than our current implementation of BitTorrent. So while corporate backed organizations like RIAA and MPAA continually do everything they can to throw the fear of God into anyone who might think of trying to come up with better software; because they might be sued into oblivion for some claim of being a provider of illegal software etc, the Chinese are moving forward.

So here we have a country that is based on communism and restricted rights blazing forward and here at home in the country of freedom, democracy and capitalism we have some of the slowest broadband speeds in the world, organizations scaring developers and corporations making record profits on self-induced technological stagnation.

It’s no wonder our technological leadership is headed for the toilet. As much as I believe it is not the tech workers or software developers who what to see this happen I do believe that the corporate and governmental leadership should be held accountable for this loss of world leadership in technology.

Listening to: Dream Theater - Dark Side Of The Moon (Official Bootleg) - Money (Live)

Conversation Tags: technology, leadership. United States, China, BitTorrent, software