On Thu, 9 Jun 2016 13:10:27 +1200, Peter Reutemann wrote:
'Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web, believes that the way it works in the present day "completely undermines the spirit of helping people create."'
In retrospect, this was an inevitable consequence of the asymmetric client-server nature of the WWW. The underlying Internet protocols put the smarts at the periphery, rather than in the network, and this makes sense: it means you don’t need permission from the network owners to create new applications (e.g. SSH, BitTorrent, the WWW). But the WWW itself gives power to website operators in proportion to how many users they can attract. And this is what concentrates so much control in the hands of companies like FaceBook and Google. Sure, you can set up your own rival services; but how do you attract users to them? Bruce Schneier calls this the “Feudal Internet” <https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2013/06/you_have_no_control.html>.