Why you can — and should be — criticizing ‘’the Internet’’
I was one of those lucky kids who was young enough to adopt Internet from its very infancy — as it entered into our homes and lives — while being old enough to have experienced a world without it, first.
This is a very unique vantage point. Because my parents were part of the world’s very first wave of computer scientists, I essentially grew up with a blank slate — with no set expectations, but rather with many questions on the possibilities this technology carried, and which ones would turn into reality.
I watched what was initially a self-governed community build common standards, and I watched the industry, as the field matured, take over the sphere and implement increasingly more sophisticated algorithms to help us share, find and archive impressive amounts of information.
It is hard sometimes to realize that the internet didn’t just happen. That it was actually made. Created. Designed. By people like you and I.
That the form under which we know it today is just one of many possibilities. That it could have turned out completely differently, and by extension, that in the future, it could become something different altogether.
This means there is value in reflecting over the experiences and services we design over time, as a market, as a consumer and as a society. The internet is the lifeblood of information, commerce, education and communication, after all, and if there is one field where the ‘’It’s always been this way’’ mentality is regularly challenged, it is this one.
