World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee knows that the open web could reach more people across several platforms, but he's recently been concerned about whether giving it for free is really worth it.
The Vision of a Free Web
In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web to open the internet to the masses. His life-changing invention of HTTP and URLs paved the way for the massive network of data we interact with today.
To make the web accessible to everyone, Berners-Lee chose to release the source code of the web for free, so there were neither royalties nor entry fees. His philosophy was straightforward: in order for the web to thrive, it needed to be open to all for use, and making money on each search or upload would have stifled its development.
"For the web to have everything on it, everyone had to be able to use it, and want to do so. This was already asking a lot. I couldn't also ask that they pay for each search or upload they made. To succeed, therefore, it would have to be free," Berners-Lee wrote in The Guardian article.
The Influence of Free Use on Creativity
Berners-Lee made his decision based on an abiding faith in encouraging creativity and cooperation. He realized that if the web had been made proprietary, it would not have become the global system that it is today.
In 2014, he said that some people were using the World Wide Web to organize protests against oppressive regimes. This is something he did not envision for a once private medium.
Tim said that people can't suggest that something can be a universal space and also take control of it. This open-access strategy, supported by CERN (where Berners-Lee worked), enabled the web to thrive. In 1994, Berners-Lee went on to found the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to promote the advancement of web standards.
Has the Web Lost Its Freedom?
But over time, Berners-Lee began to worry about where the internet was going. In the same piece for The Guardian, he lamented that the web's early vision of freedom has been lost. He said that his invention was free, but not entirely free.
The emergence of big tech platforms, where users' personal information is collected for commercial gain, has altered the dynamics of the internet. Berners-Lee decries the way the internet is now a surveillance, repression, and data-trading tool. He contends that the internet's shift to a data-oriented model is contrary to his initial idea of an open and free web.
The 70-year-old computer scientist points out that the development of the internet into an algorithm and data-driven platform has been harmful, particularly to the youth. He called it a "wrong turn," because the essence of the open web is not there anymore.
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