Why I gave the world wide web away for free

Nostalgia, optimism, and what was “lost”

• Several comments read the article as: the web started on a hopeful trajectory toward a better world, then lost its way; the author is now looking for smaller corrective moves.
• Some recall the 1990s as uniquely optimistic and almost-utopian, including an anomalous period of worldwide, lightly censored communication that “won’t come back.”
• Others push back: they still experience largely free global communication; every era had serious problems (ozone, homelessness, etc.), so 90s optimism is partly mythmaking.
• One thread links climate-change anxiety to renewed authoritarianism: when problems lack simple solutions, “us vs them” ideologies become more attractive than universalist “better world for everyone” visions.

Guardian’s consent/paywall model and data use

• Multiple people note the irony: an article lamenting data harvesting is hosted on a site that effectively demands “consent to tracking or pay.”
• Defenders argue the Guardian is unusually generous compared with hard paywalls; journalism costs money, and you can often reject cookies (at least in some jurisdictions) or block specific scripts.
• Critics stress that “free to read” backed by data monetization is exactly the model the article warns about.

Did one person “invent” the Web, and how important was giving it away?

• Some insist the core WWW stack (HTTP, HTML, URL, first browser/server) really was a distinct, pivotal invention, and putting it in the public domain mattered.
• Others say the web was an “obvious” next step, built on hypertext, FTP, Usenet, Gopher, CEEFAX, Minitel, etc.; if it hadn’t been opened, another open system likely would have emerged.
• A counter-argument notes this is heavy hindsight bias: contemporaries didn’t generally see it as inevitable, and a proprietary web might have entrenched walled gardens like AOL/CompuServe.
• There’s broad agreement that openness and simple standards were key to beating closed systems and that earlier proprietary hypertext efforts (e.g., ones tied to licensing or micropayments) stagnated.

Advertising, centralization, and protocol choices

• One view: “we got the web advertising built” — without ad money and search, the internet would have remained niche.
• Others argue the web is still fundamentally free; users mostly choose convenience over freedom, which drives reliance on a few mega-platforms.
• Commenters note HTTP’s client/server model and lack of incentives for interoperability made walled gardens easy; by contrast, email protocols inherently distribute messages between systems, which has slowed enclosure (despite spam and hosting difficulties).
• Legal regimes (DMCA, terms of service) and dominant providers’ spam policies are seen as additional de facto “walls.”

Data ownership schemes and decentralization attempts

• Some argue loss of control over personal data is partly due to web architecture: domain registration, IPv4, NAT, and security fears make self-hosting hard for ordinary users.
• Suggestions include Tor and similar tech as ways to self-host more safely, though their adequacy is labeled “unclear.”
• Solid is discussed: its goal is to separate data from apps via personal “pods.” Critics say data is often useless without the app, and any remote app can still copy it, so privacy benefits are limited; adoption has been minimal.
• Self-hosted app platforms (e.g., ones that bundle data and app under user control) are proposed as more practical ways to give users real ownership.

AI, CERN-style governance, and open models

• The article’s call for a CERN-like, not-for-profit AI body sparks debate:
  • Some think it’s already too late; AI is captured by US/Chinese corporate interests, and big powers won’t relinquish control.
  • Others prefer public institutions over corporations: governments are at least theoretically accountable to citizens, whereas companies are structurally accountable to profit.
  • Skeptics doubt current great-power governments would be good stewards, especially amid rising autocracy.
• Several comments pin hopes on open-source LLMs and local models: cheap, offline, ad-free assistants that don’t phone home could counterbalance centralized, biased systems — albeit with their own quality issues.

Expectations of inventors and community attitudes

• Some argue that inventors who give technologies away get paradoxically less respect: people call their ideas “obvious” and then blame them for later commercialization and abuse.
• A minority of comments criticize the web’s original design for not preventing enclosure or data silos; others respond that solving every future social and economic failure was never a realistic design brief.
• A few voices express frustration with the tone of the thread itself: demanding more from the web’s inventor and holding him responsible for oligopolies’ later behavior is seen as unfair and ahistorical.