2024-03-13 Marking the Web’s 35th Birthday: A Shorter Letter

I think there are people with more interesting ideas than what Tim Berners-Lee has to say, given what I just read. His post is on Medium so I had to read in eww, the browser built into Emacs. 😂 The most interesting fragment was this:

> collectivise their solutions, and … overturn the online world being dictated by profit to one that is dictated by the needs of humanity

It's pretty much out of context because it follows something like this:

> there is a need, an urgent need, for others to do the same, to back the morally courageous leadership that is rising

How weird is that? I started thinking. Where is that morally courageous leadership that is rising? Are they morally courageous but not in other ways? Is their morality courageous because their morals aren't recognized as morals or their morals might seem amoral to others? Or is amorality considered moral in the mainstream? Or isn't it rather that the mainstream knows full well what is moral but can't help the systemic pressures of having to earn money? Why isn't he advocating for system change? Is that what collectivisation is about? What exactly are we collectivising? The solutions? The products? The capital? Or is he just saying that the morally ambiguous but courageous leaders have ideas that we, collectively, ought to support? And the "fundamental change" he has in mind are "Contract for the Web" and "Solid Protocol"? I… I don't know… We must "champion the efforts of those visionary individuals who are actively working to build a new, improved system"? It just feels so weird. How about this alternative:

1. We need a web that is built for the people, by the people.

2. We need free ourselves from the shackles and fetters of corporations.

3. Remove corporations and their representatives from all governing bodies and committees.

4. All positions to be paid positions. Don't let those on the corporate payrolls take over.

5. One human, one vote. No strings attached. Don't tie votes to membership fees. This is for all of humanity.

It took me two minutes to write something that seemed a bit more visionary than what Tim Berners-Lee had in mind and if you like it, please don't champion me but talk to some friends and do a little thing, no matter how small, to support a few more people on the web. Run a forum, a wiki, provide email services, run a fediverse instance, run a HTML course at the library, collect money for a mutual aid fund, something, anything. The only conditions are:

1. it must be a concrete thing that you are actually doing

2. it must benefit more people than are involved in doing it

It's OK to cap it. But it's important to start it. Just make it a point to enable somebody else. And just like that, we're taking back the web.

@ohyran@social.piewpiew.se commented on fedi:

> "Its hardware all the way down". The internet created this fantasy of a secondary realm outside of the physical confines of our reality - that allowed us to think that the person who controlled the narrative in that alternative universe had some control. In fact the people in control of hardware, if that's servers or cables or switches, are in control. There is no second reality.

**2024-03-14**. Brian Kardell writes:

> I’ve argued that while the web ecosystem has become the infrastructure for nearly everything, our models for funding and prioritization of the last 20 years have proven not only inadequate, and problematic, but ultimately fragile and cannot last. The only questions, I’ve argued, are how soon and what happens next. Are we ready for it? (hint: no). – How We Fund the Web Ecosystem