We didn’t lose control of the Web – it was stolen

In agreement with your comment allow me the indulgence of posting a favorite passage from the great Don Quixote:

After don Quixote had satisfied his stomach, he took some acorns in his hand, and, examining them with great care, raised his voice to speak words like these: “What a happy time and a happy age were those that the ancients called Golden! And not because gold—which in this our Age of Iron is so valued—was gotten in that fortunate time without any trouble, but rather because the people who lived then didn’t know the two words yours and mine! In that holy age all things were commonly owned. To find their daily sustenance, they had only to raise their hands and take it from the robust oaks, which liberally offered their sweet and ripe fruit to them. Crystal clear fountains and running rivers, in magnificent abundance, offered them their delicious and transparent water. In the fissures of boulders and in the hollows of trees, the diligent and prudent bees formed their republics and offered to any hand, without recompense, the fertile harvest of their very sweet work. The robust cork trees shed their lightweight bark without any artifice other than their own courtesy, with which people began to cover their rustic houses, built only for protection against the rigors of the heavens. Everything then was friendship, everything was harmony. The heavy plow had not yet dared to open nor visit the pious bowels of our first mother, for she, without being forced, gave everywhere from her fertile and broad bosom that could fill, sustain, and delight the children that possessed her then.

“It was then that the simple and beautiful young shepherdesses could travel from valley to valley and from hill to hill, either in braids or with their hair flowing behind, with only enough clothing to cover modestly what decency requires, and has always required. And their ornamentation was not like the Tyrian purple and silk woven in a thousand different ways that women esteem nowadays, but rather it was of intertwined green-dock and ivy, with which they carried themselves with perhaps as much dignity and composure as our courtesans do nowadays, strutting about in extravagant dresses. In those days, literary expressions of love were recited in a simple way, without any unnatural circumlocution to express them.

“Fraud, deceit, and wickedness had not as yet contaminated truth and sincerity. Justice was administered on its own terms and was not tainted by favor and self-interest, which now impair, overturn, and persecute it. Arbitrary law had not yet debased the rulings of the judge, because in those days there was nothing to judge, nor anyone to be judged.

“Young women, with their chastity intact, traveled about on their own anywhere they wanted, as I’ve said, without fearing the damaging boldness or lust of others, and if they suffered any ruination it was born of their own pleasure and free will. Nowadays, in our detestable age, no young woman is secure, even though she be hidden and locked in a new labyrinth of Crete, for even there, through the cracks or borne in the air, the plague of lust finds its way in with the zeal of cursed importunity, and brings her to ruin in spite of her seclusion. As time went by and as wickedness grew, the order of knight errantry was instituted to defend young women, protect widows, and help orphans and needy people.

“I am a member of this order, brother goatherds, and I’m grateful for the hearty welcome and reception you’ve given me and my squire. For, although under natural law all living souls are obliged to show favor to knights errant, it’s still fitting that—knowing as I do you received and entertained me with no knowledge of this obligation—I should acknowledge your good will with utmost gratitude.”

All of this long speech, which could well have been spared, was given by our knight because the acorns brought the Golden Age to his memory. And he was moved to give that useless speech to the goatherds, who, without saying a single word, were listening to him open-mouthed and amazed. Sancho also remained silent as he snacked on some acorns and visited very frequently a second wineskin that had been suspended from a cork tree to make the wine cool.

The argument is an angry version of "if it's free, you're the product," which at this stage is very uncontroversial, and only comments on the "we've lost control of our data" point made in the original post. The link between what author calls "people farming" and "surveillance" is not compelling.

That said, I personally agree with the author in identifying the main problem of the web as people tracking. In my opinion, Tim Bernes-Lee points about misinformation and political advertising are not specific to the medium, but rather to the times we live in. People are pissed, people are scared, they need something to blame, they need some fantasy to believe in, they make up scary news, they vote for the guy that gives them a dream.

What's specific to the web though, (and that is starting to spread out of the web) is the data tracking. Whether for advertising ends or for surveillance purposes, data tracking creates a power imbalance between people and systems that is unbearable.

That power imbalance is the weirdness you felt the first time you saw a gmail ad related to the email you were reading. It's the anger that heats up your cheeks when the sales guy asks for your email address when you just want to buy shoes. It's the 2-hour phone call to the customer service that ends in "I'm sorry there is nothing I can do for you". It's the "late fee" mails you automatically receive for a service that you cancelled. It's realizing that the app your employer installed on your phone can tell them your location at all times. It's the swatting that reminds you not to shop for pressure cookers online. It's the cameras. It's the cars. It's the lightbulbs.

We as people are weak. I don't think Silicon Valley intended it that way. I think they genuinely wanted to improve the world. And in order to keep it cheap, they found money where they could, and in the process, they undermined people's privacy in a way that is making the world a lot worse than it was.

I personally feel hopeful. Countries are made of people. And I think that people are starting to get it. We need rules to prevent this. Laws that force companies to automatically give you the option not to track you. The same laws that forced mailing list senders to have the unsubscribe button (thank god for the unsubscribe button!). For this to happen, we need lobbying, we need awareness. We need a "this website is not tracking you" label. We need privacy checks.

Funny thing is that I've been introduced to Signal by my peers. No paranoid lunatic glare.

The app has some rogue edges and needs to be refined in order to be as usable as wa, specifically: data usage & media compression.

The service has a high potential indeed.

I would say there's certain segments of markets that will violate the law. I think this fits within the "bad egg" characterization I made before. New laws are often targeted directly at these segments, it changes the fabric of the market.

Signal is too difficult to be used by my relatives, but do not underestimate the issue. Dad uses the app to work and has not uninstalled, while mom, did the upgrade, came to ask "why the gardener of the nearby sends me pictures while he's kissing his girlfriend?", and then uninstalled the whole, she's now using sms again.