The failure of the World Wide Web project

I am old enough to remember the early days of the internet. This new thing that only the hip young people knew how to use and had to explain to their parents and grandparents. It was exciting and fresh; it had a sense of place and community. The promise of instant access to all of humanity’s knowledge but mostly, a new form of almost free, unlimited communication was invigorating.

 People were going online because it was “cool” and because it almost felt like being part of a counterculture, an intellectual form of rebellion. This feeling of freedom, and sense of “underground” alternative community resonated mostly with young people who were openminded and ready to embrace it. It split generations, it was wild, unstructured and chaotic and that was the charm of it. It was just punk rock to be on the internet, or at least this is how I remember it.

 It was completely normal and encouraged to enter chat rooms on IRC, with hundreds or thousands of participants and talk to complete strangers for hours. You wouldn’t know the other person’s real name and you won’t see their face. I don’t know if this was a good or a bad thing, but this is what it was. It was up to you to decide which room to enter and who to engage with.

And then there was of course, the WEB. This is where you would go to read about the topics that interest you. Video games, movies, music, space, politics, cooking recipes, money, astrology, pets, plants, anything really. You would open Netscape Navigator, enter the full host name of your favourite web site, press enter, and wait, maybe 10 seconds, maybe a minute. Rudimentary search engines and index (portal) sites did exist, but most of the time, you would know exactly which site you want to visit.

The World Wide Web became the place you go to look for information if you are a person of the new millennium and you are living the future now. It was what your mother didn’t do and didn’t know how to do, which made it even cooler.

It is very important to note here, that a lot of what was on the internet back then was created by people who didn’t get paid by anyone and mostly didn’t make money out of it. Similarly to the free software community, which still very much exists, the internet was run by people with passion and some free time who didn’t necessarily expect to become millionaires. A lot was done for “street credit”. In this case “online credit”. Therefore, rarely was anyone trying to sell you anything, especially if you are not actively looking to buy online.

However, since most of the world lives under capitalism, this obviously could not exist for very long. Some people quickly realized that there’s money to be made there, and lots of it. The internet was to be monetized, and everyone had to be on it, for maximum profit. 

We can divide the history of the consumer internet into four epochs or eras. The first, ‘old internet’ is what I was describing above. The second era came with the introduction of the first modern search engine (Google), this is also when your dad got on the internet for the first time. The third era is when the first modern social network (Facebook) came into existence, this is also when your grandma joined the party.  And the fourth era may or may not be defined by the popularisation of LLMs, but this is still ongoing, and I don’t know where it will lead, if anywhere.

The first search engine I remember using was Yahoo. I was a kid so I would mostly search for specific video games, and it would redirect me to either the official site of the publisher or the platform, sometimes towards an online magazine. I feel like a search engine back then was a way to discover a new web site, but then you would bookmark the site and won’t use the search engine again with the same query. It was moderately convenient, but not an absolute necessity.

Then came Google. Unlike Yahoo, it had this clean homepage with only a text box and a button. This was rather impressive because at the time web sites, especially portals, tended to be quite cluttered. The minimalistic Google front page was there to say: “You are in control; we are not pushing anything unwanted into your face”. This design definitely worked, but now that we know what the actual business plan was, this supposed expression of goodwill and innocence is just LOL. Moreover, very ironically, the slogan ‘Don’t be evil’ happened to be a brilliant example of foreshadowing. I don’t think many people at the time realised the potential for “evil” a search engine has, but they knew, they knew exactly what they were doing.

So, Google knew who they are dealing with. Most of the internet’s population were still the hip, cool youngsters. How do we win them over? Give them a free email account and tell them that we are not an evil corporation! To the contrary, we are young and cool like you, we give you free stuff out of the goodness of our hearts and we don’t like corporations at all, especially Microsoft.

Microsoft was quite disliked at the time, especially by the home computer user. They were seen as greedy monopolists, and their software was heavily mocked for its poor quality. Microsoft operated under a traditional, old school business model with well defined transactions where you pay money and receive a product in return. As a result, they became quite rich, Bill Gates was the richest man in the world at the time. Naturally, this humongous corporation didn’t appeal to the kids on the internet who wanted stuff to be free, both like in ‘free speech’ and in ‘free beer’.

Google saw the tear between the internet and the traditional business world. It was obvious that you cannot charge people subscription fee for a search engine. It wasn’t an essential product at the time, and nobody would have paid money for that. Furthermore, the online payment infrastructure was not developed yet and most people weren’t comfortable using credit cards online.

So how do you make money from the internet? Stand by for a ground-breaking idea … advertisements. The same way people made money from TV and radio for a century prior. Truly innovative, out of the box thinking.

Most nations have state sponsored, ad free, TV and radio stations. The reason for this is quite simple: serving advertisements instantly puts you in a position of conflict of interest. You cannot be objective and provide truthful, trustworthy information if certain companies or individuals are off limits for criticism and must be pleased because they advertise on your channel. Ad sponsored media can never be fully trusted and this is a well-known fact.

So, what was the plan for the monetisation of the internet? Provide a free, convenient and appealing set of services, seemingly out of pure generosity. Gain trust by appearing genuinely concerned about free and open internet standards. Oppose the evil, greedy, monopolistic Microsoft. Expand as much as possible to every corner of the internet through secondary products and numerous acquisitions. Become the de facto gateway to the internet for most people. Actually, synonymous with the internet for some. And finally, profit by showing ads.

Showing ads by itself doesn’t seem like such a horrible thing to do, and it isn’t until you realise that the place where everyone goes to search for answers is actually a marketplace. The product being sold at this marketplace is your attention and the customer being served is the advertiser. You are not the user; you are now the product and everything you are shown is selected to maximise profit for the market maker and its true paying customers.

None of this is new and it worked the exact same way for TV, radio and printed media. Except one major difference. The so called “legacy” media is one way and the internet was turned into a feedback loop. Everything you search for is recorded and processed to determine your interests. The “free” email account that you received a couple of years ago is scanned for keywords for the same purpose. All so the marketplace can best determine what are you most likely to spend money on. It is really so much more efficient than TV in manipulating us.

So, are we getting enriching and enlightening information from the internet or is it purposefully implanted ideas and thoughts, mostly related to consumerism? Did the Web keep up to its original promise to give us free access to all human knowledge? Is it still cool and rebellious to be on the Web or did the Web turn you into a victim to be exploited for its time and energy like in the movie The Matrix? Is it really a good thing when a corporation gives you something for “free”?

“Free” as in “free beer” was the bait that we all bit on. When dealing with corporations, a paying customer is a powerful customer. When you pay with your wallet, you get to demand a service which treats you with respect and doesn’t abuse the access to your private data. When you don’t pay, you don’t get to demand anything. I’m absolutely not saying that everything should be behind a paywall. Free software projects like GNU/Linux and web sites like Wikipedia show that “pro bono” from the early days of the internet is still here and can yield brilliant results. However, if you are receiving something for “free” from a billion-dollar corporation, it’s a trap.

This leads us to the current state of affairs, the internet, post the invention of social media. Social sites existed before Facebook. They were more local, usually not international, and weren’t called “social” but friendship or dating. For some “magical” reason, Facebook was something else, it came like a storm and changed absolutely everything. I remember that my sister, who is older than me and was never before interested in computers or the internet, bought her first netbook during this period, for the sole purpose of using Facebook. It was mostly peer pressure, fear of missing out and of course, the casual games. I remember her playing Pet Society for hours every day. We had a PlayStation at home since the mid-90s, I have never seen her play a video game before. This is the point where literally everyone and their grandma came on the internet. By the way, I have nothing against your grandma, I’m sure that she is a lovely woman. Just be aware that she was taken out of her existing cultural and technological context, force pushed into a new one, mostly without informed consent, and for profit.

The success and the “magic” of Facebook was built on the very primal and deeply rooted desire to be liked and to belong. People started evaluating each other based on how many “friends” and likes they have on Facebook. This ultimately led to a whole new class of anxieties and mental problems. Many people who became affected by this, didn’t anticipate it and couldn’t foresee it. Nobody warned them and it was too late to escape now. I’m not going to explore the psychological effects of social media here because this is a very deep and highly discussed topic, instead I will focus on the main point here, which is the evolution (or the regression) of the Web.  

In relation to the free (as in freedom) and open nature of the internet, this is where things really started to get dark. The ad-driven surveillance system which was already a fact became infinitely worse. Now the corporations had not only your emails and search history but your entire social topology. They knew who your friends are and who is your family. With the wide adoption of smartphones, they knew where you are and who are you with.

So how and why did we allow the total corruption of a project which promised information freedom and enlightenment for the new millennium? How did, in 25 years, the average internet user changed from an edgy optimistic futurist to an addicted miserable slave? Couple of reasons: Sheer corporate greed; Misunderstanding and naiveté on the side of the public; Under regulation from governments full of aging politicians who never understood or pretended to not understand the very serious consequences of allowing the internet to turn into a capitalist hellhole; General change in the political and cultural state of the world, which is both a cause and effect.

So, is it all lost? Can we save the Web? It’s possible but it probably won’t happen. The average internet user is aware of the harmful effects of social media, doom scrolling, binge watching, brain rot, echo chambers, etc. but most won’t abandon it. Just like the average smoker is aware of the risk of smoking. Addiction is addiction and peer pressure is strong. Every time someone wants to convince you in the benefits of social media and how important it is for society, it is most probably someone who wants to sell you something. It was built in a way which makes it useful for marketing surveillance and advertisement purposes, and not much else. Every other usage scenario doesn’t bring revenue to the platform holder, and they don’t care about it. No, it doesn’t connect people, people are lonelier than ever and have the lowest number of real friends in history. It is all very reminiscent of the mid-20^th century marketing campaigns of tobacco companies where they were trying to convince people that smoking is actually good for you because it brings you joy and improves your social life. Unlike tobacco however, social media has been the subject of zero regulation.

What we can do is actively choose to use the internet wisely, in a positive way and with purpose. Take agency over the information that you consume. Be proactive in your browsing. The good stuff is still there, food to expand your world and satisfy your curiosity is there, you just have to ignore the dopamine machine and the algorithms and go deeper in the search for it. The internet was never meant to have a gateway, and it was never meant to consist of five or ten sites and apps controlled by a couple of corporations. Instead of scrolling on Instagram to infinity, read an article from your favourite online magazine. Instead of choosing from the recommendations on YouTube, search for a specific topic. If you want to read the news, go read the work of actual journalist, don’t rely on social media to stay informed. Don’t fall for rage bait and don’t engage in toxic discussions and arguments.

You can also be creative if you feel like it. Express yourself, share something positive and meaningful for others to benefit, without expecting a reward. Put your landscape photography online or write a guide to a beautiful hiking path in the mountains. Not on popular social media sites, not out of vanity, not for the likes, not to brag about it, not to get an influencer deal, not to become famous. Just to maybe inspire others but mostly as a creative outlet for yourself. As a way to practice attention and focus on the things that you like. Never feel obliged or peer pressured to put your entire life on the internet!

The sense of community and the excitement has largely been lost for me. But it is not all bleak, the Web can still be used in a positive way if you know how to avoid all the mines that have been set for you. Use it with purpose and you might benefit from it in a way. But the project of the World Wide Web as a whole, have sadly failed in its original mission. This altruistic in its nature project, fell victim to greed and capitalism. It was monetised in the worst and most destructive possible way and taken over by a bunch of corporations.