[dfex]

In no particular order: - The WWW - from a delightfully whimsical follow the rabbit-hole experience in the early 90s where discovery was hard, but content was king; to a centralised, AI-ranked, viral echo-chamber in the 00s and 10s where the discovery engines now control the whole experience and the content you see is presented based on who pays. The key problem here being the monetisation of discovery. We need solve search and discovery, but deliver it as an open Internet standard like DNS or HTTP.

- Smart devices - buying an appliance with a closed-source, embedded device that relies on Internet connectivity and the solvency of it's manufacturer in order to operate it, patch it, secure it, and maintain it is the antithesis of what this planet needs right now. When the CA Root certificate(s) installed in your no-name smart TV expires and the OEM doesn't exist/doesn't care to provide you a firmware update, these devices will become less than worthless and most likely landfill. We need industry to adopt an open framework for smart devices that helps prolong their lifespan eg: a public Linux repo for updates to the underlying OS - the OEMs can deploy their own user interface, but end-users should be able to pick and choose if they wish (and most wont').

- Trust - in particular X.509 certificates. A lot of progress has been made in making trust via digital certificates the default rather than a paranoid exception, with a large portion of the web being delivered over HTTPS, RPKI for BGP currently being deployed in large operators and DNSSEC showing some (admittedly slow) signs of adoption. What is still a major problem in this area is the complexity of certificate management and renewal. The work LetsEncrypt and the EFF (certbot) have done in automating this process is fantastic, but these are still a long way from mainstream usage.