Can the World Wide Web be saved?

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The World Wide Web has turned 30 - but should we be celebrating its birthday or mourning its loss?

Its creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee believes that we can still get the web we want by dreaming a little and working a lot, reports Perspecs.

However, it might be too late for the web. The original free and open ideals of the internet may be at odds with the "near-monopolistic" control from tech giants.

The Claim

Berners-Lee remains optimistic about the future of his creation. In an open letter published by the World Wide Web Foundation, he said that the web is for everyone, and "collectively we hold the power to change it".

Berners-Lee said: "It won't be easy. But if we dream a little and work a lot, we can get the web we want."

He acknowledged that there are problems with the web - from scammers to the spreading of hatred - but also said it had created opportunity and given marginalised groups a voice.

The web's inventor said: "It's understandable that many people feel afraid and unsure if the web is really a force for good.

"But given how much the web has changed in the past 30 years, it would be defeatist and unimaginative to assume that the web as we know it can't be changed for the better in the next 30.”

He added: "If we give up on building a better web now, then the web will not have failed us. We will have failed the web."

The Counterclaim

However, the American Conservative's Jonathan Tepper has already called the time of death for the internet. He argues: "If you had to choose a date for when the internet died, it would be in the year 2014."

The web was a "lively ecosystem" before that year, with traffic coming from many sources. This changed when a few giant companies started controlling most of the traffic, personal data, commerce, and the flow of information.

In 2014, more than half of all traffic began coming from two sources: Facebook and Google. Today, over 70 per cent is dominated by these two giants.

Tepper argues that the internet cannot be free and open, as it was originally intended, when two companies have "near-monopolistic" control over the flow of information. He says that the "vast imbalance of power" can have grave consequences for society and the economy.

He concludes: "The internet has become the opposite of what it was intended to be."

The Facts

The World Wide Web turned 30 on March 12. On that day in 1989, Berners-Lee wrote his proposal for a new information management system connecting multiple computers at CERN, the European physics laboratory.

He received a three-worded feedback from his supervisor, written on the cover of this important document: "Vague, but exciting."

By the end of 1990, he had written the three fundamental technologies that remain the foundation of today's World Wide Web, according to the Computer Business Review. They were: HTML (the formatting language for the web); URI (a unique address for each resource on the web, also known as URL); and HTTP (the retrieval of linked resources from across the web).

The first web page was created on the open internet in 1990, and in the following year, people outside of CERN were invited to join this new online community.

Computers had previously talked to each other, with email and message boards already established, through the help of the network ARPANET. The World Wide Web made information easy to find and move between, and it allowed anyone to create a website of their own.

While the internet and the web are used interchangeably, they are not the same thing. The internet is a giant network of computers that can communicate and exchange information with one another; the World Wide Web is the way of accessing this network.