IT Essentials: RIP, Open Web

Revolutionary idealism has met the blunt force of capitalism

In 1996, John Perry Barlow did not set pen to paper. Instead, he typed a document that quickly spread to tens of thousands of fledgling websites around the world.

This document, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, set out the idea of the internet as a place free of outside interference, where the governments of the world hold no power and people are free to solve their own problems by forming a new social contract.

The idealistic, libertarian theory was reflected in the free spread of information and ideas across the internet - an era now known as Web 1.0.

Things have changed.

The widespread use of the internet for protest, sharing confidential and sensitive information, and radicalisation have seen governments step in, and its massive popularity has made it the first port of call for advertisers.

Realising the importance of knowing your customer, both governments and companies have stepped up their data-gathering efforts. People have been manoeuvered away from the open internet - web browsers and websites - and towards a controlled experience: the rise of apps.

How many times have you seen the message, "It's better on the app!" when trying to do something relatively simple, like enter a gas reading, order a takeaway or check a bill?

Companies like Reddit and Twitter have been attacking third-party apps this month in an effort to force people onto their own, tightly controlled ecosystems, but the open internet is still there: a reliable holdout where you can choose to block ads and reject tracking cookies. It might not be as seamless an experience as the app, but at least you have control.

Google's Web Integrity API, first seen earlier this year but really arousing the wrath of the technical community last weekend, threatens to change that.

Google is one of the world's largest companies, and it has increasingly been working to turn the internet into a monopoly. A majority of internet users now find websites through Google search, on a Google browser (or one based on Google's Chromium technology), and the results are those Google judges most likely to serve a user's interests - in many cases, delivered through one of Google's cached AMP links.

Now, the browser itself - the window to the internet - is threatened. If the Web Integrity API goes ahead as-is (all development is iterative, but the possibility exists) any browser on an 'untrusted' OS, plus those modified with assistive technologies or for web scraping, would just stop functioning.

Free market economics are the surprising bright spot: Chrome competitors like Firefox still exist. The open internet is under threat, but it's not pushing up the daisies just yet.

This is why the metaverse is so dangerous. A truly successful implementation would take total control over the web browsing experience, to the point where 'internet' and 'metaverse' become interchangeable.

If we really do reach that end point, wave goodbye to privacy and hello to Ready Player One.