[elcapitan]

I think the way the web has been conceived once and then evolved around a relatively small set of core concepts is amazing. I find it hard to imagine though that after 20 years of evolution we could go back to a point where we apply another round of centralized planning how it actually should look like. The existence of centralized services is the result of demand and evolution, not of false planning in the beginning.

20 years is still a very short timespan, and we should probably admit that for huge societal changes like this we simply need more experimentation and more time. The rapid changes in technology sometimes lead people to the misconception that everything else would move similarly fast, but our human world is still slow. I'd rather see more people just try out different options on the web as it is and then have the most successful win rather than putting a bunch of clever people in a room and plan for everybody else.

[cheez]

One way to think about this is that these guys are going to try, they'll come up with stuff that no one uses and it will be some nerd somewhere that comes up with the next iteration of the web. I.e., it won't be Berners-Lee that does it, it will be the next Berners-Lee somewhere.

Satoshi (whether one person, or a group) did it with Bitcoin. The concept is now ingrained into every architect's toolbox. While Bitcoin itself won't revolutionize the web, it is a huge step forward in how to think of decentralization in an environment where it is too costly (technically, financially) to effectively decentralize.

Perhaps the next step will be combining said decentralization with anonymity.

Then in 50 years, maybe we'll all have our own anonymity-preserving "cloud boxes" that follow us wherever we live, just like routers do now (save the anonymity and storage).

[elcapitan]

Yes, that's what I would favor. Not only decentralized web, but also dezentralized thinking and tinkering.

Maybe it's because the emphasis of the article is put on Berners-Lee and thereby creating a notion of authority, or because the group meeting and church-like environment somehow looks and sounds very much like design by committee, but the article didn't really convey that path to me.

[cheez]

My point was to say that it doesn't matter what these guys do. The web became centralized because that was expedient, convenient and we could pay someone else to do the work. Anything that doesn't have these characteristics will not replace the centralization.

[decade21]

>Then in 50 years, maybe we'll all have our own anonymity-preserving "cloud boxes"

Urbit looks really promising in that aspect