NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, January 17, 2014

Social entrepreneurship and the open, freely accessed – but still commercially viable – Internet have worn parallel paths into the American landscape. It is no accident that the rise of social enterprises from the mid-90s to the present correlates almost perfectly with instant communications, access to vast knowledge, and the sharing of data and application by many millions of people. Almost the second the Internet became a mainstream medium, a moment that can be nearly traced to the rise of America Online and the release of Netscape two decades ago, a bunch of do-gooders, techies, dreamers and social innovators took to its precincts with a will to use its low barrier to entry and open architecture to try and change some corner of society.

The threat to the concept of Federal “net neutrality” frankly threatens the concept of social enterprise in the United States, and may slow the growth of people pursuing social entrepreneurship as a career – and social change as a calling.