What would you do if the Internet suddenly vanished?

This is a question I asked myself today when I was thinking about how unstable businesses that depend on brick-and-mortar buildings are.

With a physical location you have to worry about rising rent costs and government interference and zoning regulations and arsonists and hailstorms and pipes breaking and electrical shortages and on and on and on.

There are a million and one things conspiring to derail your business and kick you out, forcing you to start all over again.

So what makes us think that the Internet is more defensible?

It’s hard to speculate what could bring down the net, but it’s not impossible. In fact, as more and more nations and individuals militarize the online world, it seems downright likely that some major online atom bomb will detonate at some point in the near-future.

But instead of hundreds of thousands of people dying, the results will be economic and technological catastrophe.

Think of how much of your life is dependent on the Internet not failing: from global and local infrastructures and running your business all the way down to keeping up with friends via Facebook and browsing the news.

What would you do?

Update: December 22, 2016

Still something I think about. I try to make sure that I have skills I can use offline as well as online, just in case.