Technology

The web sucks

The future will be decentralised, but just when is anyone’s guess.

02 November 2020

In the beginning, there was the Web, and it was good, but then again, we didn’t know any better. There were static pages, and instead of a comment section, there was a guestbook.

Then there was Web 2.0, and it really is better. Now, databases are used to store content, and there is social media. There are also APIs. This may have been an evolution, but it’s led in many cases to centralisation, which, in at least the minds of some, is a very unfortunate turn of events. As Tim Berners-Lee wrote just over two years ago, ‘the web has evolved into an engine of inequity and division, swayed by powerful forces who use it for their own agendas’. He wrote this to introduce his ‘Solid’ project, which he envisages will ‘restore the power and agency of individuals on the web’.

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