Tim Berners-Lee stresses on the importance of The Web as a public resource, and its role in democracy and free speech. By bringing up some points from its creation, Tim Berners-Lee emphasizes the fragile/shifting nature of the Web, and the dangers in believing it to be a fully established concept. Another concept is decentralization, and how the decentralized setup of the web allows for growth. Tim Berners-Lee adds that this decentralized, universal system could be changing, and gives examples of large corporate entities and their strategies that involve limitation of content. He refers to this as potentially the start of a “fragmentation” of the internet. He also emphasizes the importance of openness. He refers to “open standards” as “standards that can have any committed expert involved in the design, that have been widely reviewed as acceptable, that are available for free on the Web, and that are royalty-free (no need to pay) for developers and us- ers”. He also refers to openness as the ability to be able to create on the web without anyone’s approval. These standards help companies develop advanced applications with the reassurance that there will be usage, and allows for governments to be more transparent through the uploading of data.
I really enjoyed this work as it helped me understand the makeup of the internet/web a bit more, and helped me realize those topics as a tool with a goal. I am excited about the changes the internet as a whole will go through within the next couple of years, but I believe that there should be more of an emphasis on tech ethics and the legality side of new innovations.
