Tim Berners-Lee is not a name that is easily forgotten. After all, these words would not be published here without his work and that of his colleagues. But Tim Berners-Lee has become a strong critic of his creation and of the way it is used. His next goal, like that of many other experts, is to reinvent it.
A Web That Lost Its Way
When Tim Berners-Lee talks about the Web, we should listen. Twenty-seven years have passed since he wrote his famous proposal of "a large hypertext database with typed links", and he probably never imagined the scale his creation would reach. Even so, Berners-Lee is not happy with what he sees and dislikes the path the Web has taken. From a general standpoint, the Web is something great, but he points out that espionage, blocking of portals, recycling of user content, and redirect errors only serve to undermine the original spirit of the Web, which is to help people.
Reinventing the Web
At the "Summit for a Decentralized Web", as The New York Times reported, many ideas were explored.
In an attempt to correct these issues, Tim Berners-Lee met with other high-profile figures, including Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive and Vint Cerf, one of the masterminds behind TCP/IP. The plan is to open a new phase for the Web, or perhaps reinvent it completely, placing much more emphasis on the concept of decentralization. This would essentially prevent what is happening today, with government agencies intervening at will without any regulation, and corporations that have obtained privileged positions with the ability to make or break the Web.
Nevertheless, this "new Web" also seeks to guarantee two critical aspects: stability and permanence. Citing Vint Cerf: "People think that making things digital means they will last forever, but that is not true now." Another aspect discussed at this "Summit for a Decentralized Web" is distributing web pages without resorting to traditional methods of control — in other words, reducing the role of the conventional web server. Of course, greater decentralization means eliminating intermediaries, and Berners-Lee himself recognizes it won't be easy. According to him, the Web "is already decentralized", but the real problem lies in the dominance of a social network, a search engine, or a microblogging platform. The problem is not technical, but social.
