Description:

The majority of internet outages are caused by a technical issue on the part of the service provider, but they can also be deliberately caused by governments. Governments can block access to the internet for a variety of reasons, such as to restrict online protesters, but doing so is expensive.

A recent Top10VPN study puts this in perspective. According to the analysis, thus far in 2022, government-ordered closures have cost the world economy more than $10 billion. Even though 2022 is only halfway over, this is a twofold increase from last year.

The research group at Top10VPN followed government shutdowns in 16 different nations and calculated the daily cost, specifically the cost of blocking millions of protesters from gathering in Russia and Pakistan.

In Sudan, Syria, Algeria, and other countries, measures to prevent exam-cheating by students were among the additional justifications for official internet shutdowns. The cost to the global economy of the non-conflict-based shutdowns, which averaged more than $6 million per day, was no less than that of other types.

It is important to note that the Top10VPN list only considers significant shutdowns and ignores the additional financial and human rights implications of smaller outages. Consequently, it is likely that the true cost to the world economy is far larger than what has been stated.

However, as internet outages become more frequent worldwide to impose restrictions on online activity for a variety of reasons, experts concur with TopVPN"s report patterns anticipating that costs will continue to soar out of hand.