Response to Reading: Long Live the Web

• The author mentions the beneficial and “ill effects” of the Web. Describe two examples of these effects from your own experience on the web. 

As the author mentioned, “the Web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool”, and its wide accessibility guarantees individuals or corporations an abundance of information within an instant.  Personally, I’ve got to learn more about things I’ve never been able to reach thanks to the Web after mobile phones were widely connected to the Internet. And I cannot think of a scenario where I couldn’t use search engines to solve problems in my daily life. While the freedom of the Web has been eroded, which could obstruct users from the rights they deserve in terms of accessing information. It’s not hard to sense the inequality in power relations between individuals and large organizations or platforms.  Although as a user, I have rights to access certain information, it still is not technically possible to do so because of political sensitivity or commercial considerations from Internet companies.

• In your own words, describe the concepts below, contrast them to one another and, if possible, share associations from your own experience on the web.
  • Universality and Isolation

Universality means whatever the form of the information is, the device used, whoever the user is, the link still works. Isolation happens when data pieces don’t connect through URI, so it is a closed space.

• • • Open Standards and Closed Worlds

Open Standard: Being able to use HTML, URI and HTTP without needing to pay or asking for permission. Closed Worlds: Being walled off from outside the realm.

• • • The Web and the Internet

Web is more of an application of the internet.

• The author talks about his visions for “the Web in the future”. More than 10 years after this text was published, identify the elements of his vision and discuss the ways in which they are (or aren’t) still present in today’s web. Feel free to also point out issues that have since arisen (e.g. the idea of “fake news”), and discuss how they might relate to the author’s vision.

 In the article, the author writes, “our computer programs cannot read or manipulate the actual data within those documents” during the author’s time. And today with the occurrence of Open AI, the information processing ability of computers could support data works. But problems and issues also arise, such as privacy issues, the monopoly of certain AI, and the replacement of human workers.