25 years later
December already? Seems I’ve been collecting a lot of stuff in the background but haven’t dropped anything into the public domain in a long time. When Steven Pemberton told me many years ago that everyone should have a Web site, I completely agreed. Of course, he neglected to emphasise the responsibility involved. It’s no wonder that most people are Web readers rather than Web writers.
Well, not exactly “most” people, because it turns out that in fact most people don’t use the Web at all. In recent days, Tim Berners-Lee mentioned this fact (saying 60% are non-users, though not citing his source) while recalling that the memo that started the Web juggernaut was written by him 25 years ago (in 1989). He was presenting at the UN, recognising the significance of the Web, the fact that it is now considered a Human Right, and launching the Web We Want campaign. You can watch the presentation on the Web. Naturally.
The Web is about to enter its second quarter century and only now are we starting to be concerned about the kind of Web we want. It used to be about technical concerns. First, basic access. Then access with useful (and hopefully affordable) bandwidth. Then access on any device, anywhere. Well, we’ve sorted out a lot of those technical challenges, but all our technical ability is not going to help deal with the fundamental question of what the Web itself should be. Open? Uncensored? Creative? Reliable? Free?
It will be an interesting debate, though I worry that some campaigns claiming to spark debate start from a particular perspective and almost prejudge the outcome. For example, surveillance is presented as a negative thing, but given the way some people have abused the Web to distribute material and encourage dangerous activity, maybe some kind of surveillance is what we need. The question might not be about surveillance, but about who does it. In that case the issue is not confined to the Web.
Yes, the debate will be interesting.
Categorised as: Legal and Political