werd-io-p5z10p.txt (10001B)
1 [1]Skip to main content 2 Toggle navigation [3] Werd I/O 3 [4][ ] 4 • [5]About 5 • [6]Posts 6 • [7]Links 7 • [8]Newsletter 8 9 • [9]Subscribe 10 11 [10][thumb] [11]Ben Werdmuller [12] 12 13 14 [13]It turns out I'm still excited about the web 15 16 Passion led us here 17 18 I’m worried I’ve become cynical about technology as I’ve gotten older. But 19 maybe technology really is worse. 20 21 Someone asked me the other day: “what [in media and technology] are you excited 22 about right now?” 23 24 We both agreed that it was a surprisingly difficult question. And then came the 25 follow-up: 26 27 “Do you think it’s just because we’re older now, or is the web really less 28 exciting?” 29 30 And to be honest, I’m not sure. 31 32 I used to be so excited. If you sneak a glance at my high school yearbook, 33 you’ll see that I wanted to be a journalist. Telling stories was my first love. 34 It’s still where my brain feels the most comfortable. I love the flow state of 35 writing more than doing just about anything else. That’s why I keep writing 36 here, and why my long-term plan is to pivot from a technology career to one 37 where I get to write all the time. 38 39 But in 1994 or so, I got distracted by the web: what an amazing medium for 40 stories. Many of us share the experience of trying out a browser like NCSA 41 Mosaic, discovering voices from all over the world, and getting stuck into 42 writing our own HTML code without having to ask anyone for permission or buy a 43 software license to get started. I vividly remember when we got the ability to 44 add our own background images to web pages, for example. For a long time, I was 45 a master at table-based layouts. 46 47 In the UK, where I grew up, you were effectively forced to pick your university 48 degree at 16. You were required to choose three or four A-level subjects to 49 focus on for your last two years of high school; then you had to apply to do a 50 particular degree at each university, knowing that each degree had subject 51 requirements. If you wanted to study English at university, you needed to have 52 chosen the English A-level; good luck getting in if you hadn’t. 53 54 Specifically because I was distracted by the web, I put myself on the Computer 55 Science track. Even then, I kept a Theater A-level, because I couldn’t imagine 56 a world where there wasn’t some art and writing in my life. Most British 57 universities correspondingly dismissed me for not being focused enough, but 58 Edinburgh took me, so that’s where I went. Even while I was doing the degree, 59 [14]I built a satirical website that got over a million pageviews a day - in 60 2001. I blogged, of course, and although I haven’t kept a consistent platform 61 or domain for all that time, I’ve been writing consistently on the web since 62 1998. 63 64 It was a platform I got to approach with a sense of play; a sense of 65 storytelling; a sense of magical discovery as I met new people and learned from 66 their creativity. 67 68 The web sits apart from the rest of technology; to me, it’s inherently more 69 interesting. [15]Silicon Valley’s origins (including the venture capital 70 ecosystem) lie in defense technology. In contrast, the web was created in 71 service of academic learning and mutual discovery, and both built and shared in 72 a spirit of free and open access. Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Cailliau, and CERN 73 did a wonderful thing by building a prototype and setting it free. [16]As CERN 74 points out on its page about the history of the web: 75 76 An essential point was that the web should remain an open standard for all 77 to use and that no-one should lock it up into a proprietary system. 78 79 That ethos is how it succeeded; it’s why the web changed the world. And it’s 80 why someone like me — over in Scotland, with no networks, wealth, or privilege 81 to speak of — was able to break in and build something that got peoples’ 82 attention. It’s also why I was interested to begin with. “The internet is 83 people,” I used to say; more than protocols and pipes, the web was a fabric of 84 interconnectedness that we were all building together. Even in the beginning, 85 some people saw the web and thought, “this is a way I can make a lot of money.” 86 For me, it was always a way to build community at scale. 87 88 And then Facebook — it always seems to be Facebook — became the first web 89 company to reach a billion dollar valuation, in a year that happened to also 90 see the launch of the iPhone. Building community at scale became finding 91 customers at scale. There was a brief reprieve while global financial markets 92 tumbled at the hands of terrible debt instruments that had been built on shaky 93 foundations, and then the tech industry started investing in new startups in 94 greater and greater numbers. Y Combinator, which had started a few years 95 earlier, started investing in more and more startups, with higher and higher 96 checks ([17]$6,000 per founder for the first cohort, compared to [18]half a 97 million dollars per startup today). The number of billion-dollar-plus web 98 startups grows by the hundreds every year. 99 100 The web I loved was swamped by a mindset that was closer to Wall Street. It’s 101 been about the money ever since. 102 103 It’s so rare these days to find people who want to build that 104 interconnectedness; who see it as a mission and a movement. People in tech talk 105 excitedly about their [19]total Compensation (which has earned its own 106 shorthand acronym, TC), and less so what exciting thing they got to build, and 107 what it allowed people to do. Maybe they’ll give you a line about what they 108 allow for the enterprise or increasing some company’s bottom line, but it’s 109 usually devoid of the humanist idealism that enchanted me about the early web. 110 111 I realized some time ago that the startups I personally founded in this era 112 couldn’t have succeeded, because my focus was all wrong. I wanted to be paid to 113 explore and build this wonderful platform, and was not laser focused on how to 114 build investor value. I still want to be paid to build and explore, try and 115 make new things happen, with a sense of play. That’s not, I’m afraid to say, 116 how you build a venture-scale business. 117 118 So, let’s return to the question. Given this disillusionment, and my lack of 119 alignment with what the modern tech industry expects of us, what am I excited 120 about? 121 122 My cynicism has been tempered by the discovery that there are still movements 123 out there that remind me of the web’s original promise — efforts that focus on 124 reclaiming independence and fostering real community. Despite the 125 commercialization of the web, these are still places where that original spirit 126 of openness and community-building thrives. 127 128 [20]The Indieweb is one. It’s an interdisciplinary group of people that 129 advocates for everyone owning their own websites and publishing from their own 130 domains. It’s happening! From the resurgence of personal blogs to new 131 independent publications like [21]Platformer and [22]User Mag, many people see 132 the value of owning their presence on the internet and their relationships with 133 their community. Independence from sites like Facebook and Google is surging. 134 135 The other is [23]the Fediverse: a way to have conversations on the web that 136 isn’t owned by any single company or entity. The people who are building the 137 Fediverse (through communities, platforms like [24]Mastodon, cultural 138 explorations) are expanding a patchwork of conversations through open protocols 139 and collaborative exploration, just like the web itself was grown decades ago. 140 It’s phenomenally exciting, with a rapidly-developing center of gravity that’s 141 even drawing in some of the companies who previously were committed to siloed, 142 walled-garden models. I haven’t been this enthused about momentum on the web 143 for twenty years. 144 145 I was afraid I had become too cynical to find excitement in technology again. 146 It wasn’t true. 147 148 While I’ve grown more cynical about much of tech, movements like the Indieweb 149 and the Fediverse remind me that the ideals I once loved, and that spirit of 150 the early web, aren’t lost. They’re evolving, just like everything else. 151 152 [25] October 10, 2024 · [26]Posts · [27][logo] Share this 153 post 154 155 156 I’m writing about the intersection of the internet, media, and society. [28] 157 Sign up to my newsletter to receive every post and a weekly digest of the most 158 important stories from around the web. 159 160 [29][ ] 161 Subscribe 162 [31]Newsletter 163 164 [32][email protected] 165 166 [33]Signal 167 168 [34] 169 170 171 References: 172 173 [1] https://werd.io/2024/it-turns-out-im-still-excited-about-the-web#maincontent 174 [3] https://werd.io/ 175 [5] https://about.werd.io/ 176 [6] https://werd.io/content/posts 177 [7] https://werd.io/content/bookmarkedpages 178 [8] https://werd.io/ 179 [9] https://artisanal-artisan-3527.ck.page/56920a9da9 180 [10] https://werd.io/profile/benwerd 181 [11] https://werd.io/profile/benwerd 182 [12] https://werd.io/profile/benwerd 183 [13] https://werd.io/2024/it-turns-out-im-still-excited-about-the-web 184 [14] https://words.werd.io/we-are-the-monkeys-of-rum-70f81d4a02df 185 [15] https://words.werd.io/what-is-silicon-valley-87fcf49f30c8 186 [16] https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web/short-history-web 187 [17] https://foundersatwork.posthaven.com/grow-the-puzzle-around-you 188 [18] https://www.ycombinator.com/deal 189 [19] https://compt.io/guide/total-compensation/ 190 [20] https://indieweb.org/ 191 [21] https://www.platformer.news/leaving-substack-platformer-year-four/ 192 [22] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/taylor-lorenz-leaves-washington-post-launch-user-mag-substack-1236011888/ 193 [23] https://socialwebfoundation.org/ 194 [24] https://joinmastodon.org/ 195 [25] https://werd.io/2024/it-turns-out-im-still-excited-about-the-web 196 [26] https://werd.io/content/posts 197 [27] https://shareopenly.org/share/?url=https://werd.io/2024/it-turns-out-im-still-excited-about-the-web&text=It+turns+out+I%27m+still+excited+about+the+web 198 [28] https://newsletter.werd.io/ 199 [31] https://newsletter.werd.io/ 200 [32] mailto:[email protected] 201 [33] https://signal.me/#eu/_ehMeopT5JeELrkt2lSk-R0V6d1AsGt_3Q98UOJhgBMTal5EGTdNIbZHB9H9CqBn 202 [34] https://werd.io/feed