[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