There is something you can do to help the open web. Put yourself on it.
I started this newsletter in 2017, shortly after an election that has now played out a second time, and with the same result. The idea for something like this had been echoing through my head, but the creative restlessness I felt during that time pushed me to finally put it out there.
In all the years since, I’ve been chipping away at the timeline on this site, and writing posts for the blog and newsletter. It has been immensely rewarding. When I sit down to think about it, I am reminded of the connections I’ve made, the people I’ve spoken to, and the stories I’ve uncovered. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
It’s also been a labor of love this entire time. I’ve turned to advertising here and there to help cover some basic costs, but it’s never been a focus. Maybe in the new year I’ll actually start a Patreon or a Ko-Fi or something like that, but whenever I look into it I just get distracted and come right back to the research.
This project is about something I care deeply about. I’ve offered my own perspective and, I think, have surfaced some accounts that a very specific group of people (all of you) care about.
I do it because I am in awe of the web, and I believe in it as much as any person could. I believe in the open web. The universally accessible web. The free web.
Free as in speech, as the saying goes. And that is true. Free as in beer, too though. Libre and gratis. I have freed the information, so to speak, let it out into the world. But it’s also free to all of you, without paywalls or a business model or some scheme to capture users. I actually think that second part is pretty important.
It’s not at all coincidence that the first major decision Tim Berners-Lee ever made about the web—which was his life’s work—was to make it free. Free to all and free for all. And because he did the world transformed, and I can write this to you now.
When Berners-Lee freed the web, he tied it to a promise. To make information free as well. Implicit in that promise was the idea that that information would come from all of us. That collectively, our experiences and our contributions would create a free and open web.
I think that in this moment right now, there will be others like me that are feeling restless. Wondering what they can do. And there will be things for us to do. Right now, in my little corner I’m going to add relatively small suggestion. Small, but potentially powerful.
Put something on the web. And do it for free.
This will require, first and foremost, your time. That is no small ask, time is the most valuable thing we have. But I can tell you one thing that’s become readily apparent to me in my decade of research of the web. It is only through people’s time that we’ve gotten to where we are. The web wasn’t built by solo tech geniuses, or finance firms, or luminaries with grand promises. It was time, and energy, compounded by millions of people. Tiny little bits of information collectively covering the vastness of human experience. Collective action will be what brings us to the next era of the web.
Here’s the thing about you. You know something nobody else does. You have a perspective that nobody else does. Information doesn’t have to just be information, it can be whatever you want it to be. Start a blog. Post an art project. Write a poem. Create a fan page. Contribute to a Wikipedia article you know something about. These little actions, these little contributions, are the best way we have to claw back to a truly free web.
So put something on the open web, free from the major platforms competing for our attention. And then, after that comes the real trick. Don’t ask for anything back. Let it be free. Libre and gratis. Help bring the web back.
It can be easy to feel hopeless with wave after wave of new innovations on the web, with the GenAI promises and the crypto scams and the quest for a new Twitter, and the billions of dollars poured into the millions of apps that float all around us. All of this preys on our impulse to consume. To shorten our attention spans, reduce the time we spend thinking at all and make everything smooth. Rough out the edges.
But I like my jagged edges. I like a web that’s uneven and diverse and introspective and creative. If we want to resist the consumerism that is being sold to us at every level, you can throw your experience into that mix.
I am going to continue to write this newsletter. I am going to spend hours and hours pouring over old books and mailing lists and archived sites. And lifeless AI machines will come along and slurp up that information for their own profit. And I will underperform on algorithms. My posts will be too long, or too dense, or not long enough.
And I don’t care. I’m contributing to the free web.
