But like with the Chinese firewall, information find its way. Unless Russia wants to set itself back to 70s, they still need to access Github, Cloudflare, Amazon Cloudfront, etc. For the Russian IT business to work.
Software development and Internet were built on scientific principles, criticism, criticial thinking. This requires free flow of information. You cannot have one without the other, or you are going to end up with very inferior and inefficient software ecosystem.
Don't be so optimistic. It isn't the 90s anymore. "Information [will] find its way [through]," but probably not in ways that can change anything.
> Software development and Internet were built on scientific principles, criticism, criticial thinking. This requires free flow of information. You cannot have one without the other, or you are going to end up with very inferior and inefficient software ecosystem.
It's doubtful if that's true, but even if it is, the response of dictators everywhere is: "so?" A strong "software ecosystem" might be a top priority for you, but they care more about other things.
Exactly. IIRC, Russia is actually taking steps to build a great firewall to do that deliberately. They're just not there yet.
But once they have the technology to connect to the internet on Putin's terms, cutting them off will make more sense. Maybe not enough sense to actually do, but the option should be re-evaluated.