The World Wide Web turns 35 years old today, March 12th 2024, and its inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, expressed in an open letter the exacerbation of his concerns since the Web’s 30th anniversary, which we blogged about five years ago today.
When social media dominated the headlines in 2019, in a similar open letter, he “called out some of the dysfunction caused by the web being dominated by the self-interest of several corporations that have eroded the web’s values and led to breakdown and harm.”
With AI now dominating the headlines, in today’s open letter he argues that
the rapid advancement of AI has exacerbated these concerns, proving that issues on the web are not isolated but rather deeply intertwined with emerging technologies.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
We agree. While we would love to share that the Internet of Things, our domain of expertise, has advanced over the past five years wholly embracing the original intentions and values of the Web, the fact is that it simply has not. Instead, the IoT might best be described as a (25-year-old!) emerging technology with similar deeply intertwined issues.
The IoT could, by now, have become an established extension of the Web into the physical world in which we live, work and play. But due to lack of leadership and governance—key reasons Sir Tim Berners-Lee provides—the IoT remains segmented and siloed. Curiously, even our recent April Fool’s post about Intranets of Things resonates with the issues he takes up concerning personal data markets.
So, how do we work together towards a, positive, uplifting reflection on the Web at 40 and the IoT at 30? Well, we at reelyActive have always done our best to stay true to our founding principles, and continue to contribute our part to an open, interoperable Internet of Things which embraces not only the intention and values of the Web, but its foundational technologies as well. We consider ourselves among the “new generation of pioneers, [that] seeks to create a more human-centred web, aligned with [Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s] original vision.”
If you too share the vision of “a digital future that prioritises human well-being, equity, and autonomy”, then
there is a need, an urgent need, […] to back the morally courageous leadership that is rising, collectivise their solutions, and to overturn the online world being dictated by profit to one that is dictated by the needs of humanity.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Happy 35th anniversary World Wide Web, and thank you for continuing to fight the good fight Sir Tim Berners-Lee!
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