Personal data, universality, and the World Wide Web

The world before the Web
was highly heterogeneous.

• Exchanging information was hard.
  • different hardware
  • different software
• Innovation was hard.
  • For which machines do we build?
  • For which operating systems do we build?

The Web strives to be universal
through independence of many factors.

• Anyone can use the Web, regardless of:

  hardware

  desktop

  phone

  tablet

  watch

  …

  software

  operating system

  browser

  app

  …

• Developers are free to innovate.
  • Build for the Web.
  • Standards provide interoperability.
• Unfortunately, this is not the default elsewhere.
  • App stores are a prominent counterexample.

CERN decided to make the Web
available royalty-free in 1993.

This is for everyone #london2012 #oneweb #openingceremony @webfoundation @w3c

Tim Berners-Lee July 27, 2012

The Web brings freedom of expression
to everyone across the world.

• Anyone can say anything about anything.
• We all have our own spaces,
  so we don’t have to agree.
• We can link to opinions of others
  to discuss about them.

A generation of social platforms
helped people interact and share.

The Web brings permissionless innovation
at a global scale.

• Anyone can build anything for any reason.
• You don’t need anyone’s permission
  to join the Web and launch a new idea.
  • not the case in app stores

Permissionless innovation has brought
unprecedented creativity to the world.

The first threat to universality
were the browser wars.

• No Internet Explorer?
  • You’re out of luck!
• People needed a certain computer.
  • no mobile devices
• Developers depended on Microsoft’s pace.
  • browsers were not very powerful

This battle was replaced by another:
the search engine wars.

• Not on Google?
  • You’re out of luck!
• Ranking high became more important
  than high-quality content.
• The reach of your innovations
  depended on one crawler.

This battle was also replaced by another:
the platform wars.

• Not on Facebook?
  • You’re out of luck!
• Clicks became more important
  than high-quality content.
• You either compete for innovation
  with Facebook, or depend on it.

Ironically, permissionless innovation
even allows platforms that prevent it.

The Facebook founder has no intention of
allowing anyone to build anything on his platform
that does not have his express approval.

Having profited mightily from the Web’s openness,
he has kicked away the ladder that elevated him
to his current eminence.

John Naughton, The Guardian

In Europe, the freedom to place
hyperlinks is under threat.

In Australia, we see complex interactions
between traditional and new media.

Every piece of data created by a person
or about them, is stored in a data pod.

Apps and services appear similarly,
but they blend data from many sources.

A person can grant apps and people access
to very specific parts of their data.

Separating app and storage competition
creates better offerings for all parties.

By abandoning data harvesting,
we restore permissionless innovation.

Solid is not a company or organisation.
Solid is not (just) software.

• Solid is an ecosystem.
  • Standards enable interoperability.
• Solid is a movement.
  • We need to shift the app builder mindset.
• Solid is a community.
  • Building Solid requires different people,
    companies, and organisations.

A typical data pod can contain
any data you create or need online.

• profile 👤
• photos 🖼
• comments 🗣
• likes 👍
• … ✨

Any app you can envision,
you can build with Solid.

• calendar 📅
• social feed 👥
• photo sharing 📸
• COVID-19 tracking system 👩‍⚕️
• … ✨

Solid needs a diverse community
in order to succeed.

Let’s assemble the brightest minds
from business, technology, government,
civil society, the arts and academia
to tackle the threats to the Web’s future.

Tim Berners-Lee