The Battle for the Soul of the Web
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Highlights
- The disparate threads could all be tied to the same point of origin: It feels like things have gone wrong on the internet. Decades removed from the gonzo highs of blinging GIFs and wacky blogs, the web is now a place where many people feel exploited, manipulated, and tracked; where freedom of speech is being tugged around in a strange culture war; and where the rich get richer.
- It’s not dazzling stuff. Kahle analogizes the effort to rebuilding the internet’s “plumbing.” Especially after the crypto boom rightfully put skeptics on guard, he sees the challenge as convincing people that it’s worth it to push forward—that the internet really can be different, and better. “When there’s a new technology, people gravitate towards it with their existing anxieties,” he told me. “And unfortunately, you roll time forward, and people are disappointed by the technology, right? It didn’t fulfill their dreams. But it’s not because their dreams were wrong. It’s because we didn’t build good-enough technology.”
- How do you inspire the boring work of iteration? In a recent essay about digital real estate for the Austria-based art magazine Spike, the sociologist Ido Nahari wrote about a longing for a return to the original ethos of the web, which at its best “demonstrated the democratic desire not only to idly exist within the world, but also to take part in its collective creation.” It doesn’t much matter what you call it, so long as you can get people feeling that way again.
The Battle for the Soul of the Web
Metadata
Highlights
- The disparate threads could all be tied to the same point of origin: It feels like things have gone wrong on the internet. Decades removed from the gonzo highs of blinging GIFs and wacky blogs, the web is now a place where many people feel exploited, manipulated, and tracked; where freedom of speech is being tugged around in a strange culture war; and where the rich get richer.
- It’s not dazzling stuff. Kahle analogizes the effort to rebuilding the internet’s “plumbing.” Especially after the crypto boom rightfully put skeptics on guard, he sees the challenge as convincing people that it’s worth it to push forward—that the internet really can be different, and better. “When there’s a new technology, people gravitate towards it with their existing anxieties,” he told me. “And unfortunately, you roll time forward, and people are disappointed by the technology, right? It didn’t fulfill their dreams. But it’s not because their dreams were wrong. It’s because we didn’t build good-enough technology.”
- How do you inspire the boring work of iteration? In a recent essay about digital real estate for the Austria-based art magazine Spike, the sociologist Ido Nahari wrote about a longing for a return to the original ethos of the web, which at its best “demonstrated the democratic desire not only to idly exist within the world, but also to take part in its collective creation.” It doesn’t much matter what you call it, so long as you can get people feeling that way again.