“The web is already decentralized,” Mr. Berners-Lee said.
“The problem is the dominance of one search engine, one
big social network, one Twitter for microblogging. We
don’t have a technology problem, we have a social
problem.”
One that can, perhaps, be solved by more technology.
This is a very confused article. It's a social problem! But we're going to solve it with technology!
I'm sure Tim Berners-Lee has a great understanding of the situation, but since it didn't come across in the article let's try to build our own description of the problem here in the comments. To do this we'll go through the most interesting projects in the "fix the web" space and steal their key insights.
# Camlistore - All Your Data Should Be in One Place
I probably have important data in two dozen different places. Google, FB, Dropbox, Reddit, GitHub, Mint, Stack Exchange, Amazon, etc. This is crazy!
All my personal data should go into a personal data store. I'm not sure how we'll ever approach a sane system without this step. Camlistore is all about making that data store.
More info here:
https://camlistore.org/doc/overview
" Camlistore is your personal storage system for life. "
# Urbit - Everyone Should Have a Name
Right now only techies own their names. We do it in two ways -- the total ownership way where we make a private key and identify ourselves with it, and the "technically renting but basically ownership" way where we buy a domain. You can reach me at @ today, tomorrow, and probably for the rest of my life.
Most non-techies get by with Gmail and a FB page. This isn't the worst, but it's not ideal.
And for every different service we use we get a different name. I don't want 20 names! I want to use my name! (Or sometimes one of my pseudonyms, which Urbit has first-class support for).
In Urbit everyone has a name[1]. Even better, this name maps to their computer, so if I know my friends name I can connect to their computer -- the foundation of getting an actual peer-to-peer network back from the current mess.
[1] Connected to a private key and human readable! But often silly, eg: ~gumdob-tumlub
# Sandstorm - Everyone Needs a Server
Servers are necessary to be real internet citizens. I think this is basically self-explanatory. If your entire internet presence disappears when you close your laptop lid you're basically beyond helping, and will always need some kind of walled-garden to watch out for you.
The problem is that Linux servers are a pain to host. With Sandstorm you can set up a server with one click. You can install apps with one click. This is . . . basically such an obviously good idea it's hard to find more to say about it.
If there are more interesting projects in this space please mention them, I'm going back to coding:)
EDIT: I wasn't really sure what to write for a conclusion, but now I've thought of one: The web evolved, what we get next will be _built_. This is very exciting.