The World Wide Web

 I had a lot of fun with this one! I love learning more about stuff like technology, sports, and the like. Technology in particular is incredibly interesting because of how quickly it has developed. The prime example of this is the World Wide Web. I found it remarkable that the WWW developed as quickly as it did, especially considering the initial market. The World Wide Web is one of those inventions that appealed to a niche market so, initially, it didn't really affect a lot of people. Now? It has been deeply rooted in everything we do, from how we take notes to how we shop and consume our news. As I thought about it I realized that I wouldn't be writing this blog about a presentation I just completed to a website that wouldn't exist on a computer that likely wouldn't exist or, at the very least, be useable without the World Wide Web. Anyway, this is supposed to be about the history and impact of the World Wide Web.

Historically speaking, we have one man to praise like Beethoven and his symphonies: one Tim Berners-Lee, a European scientist from CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research). Think about that: a NUCLEAR SCIENTIST created the modern internet and helped kickstart 4 of the 5 most valuable companies on earth into overdrive. At the time of its creation, the internet wasn't much of an internet as we see it today. It was exclusively used by specialists who knew how to write code on DOS, or the Disk Operating System. The World Wide Web proposed to streamline the coding portion and create a simplistic interface that could be used by any shmuck such as myself. Now, the US Government had been using a form of DOS since the 1960s, but Berners-Lee's intended use for the initial web was to send information between hospitals. It was conceptualized in 1989, but was initially created in late 1991. Just 3 years later, there were over 10 million users. Nowadays, it seems that we can't live without it. However, with great power comes great responsibility, and in the past 10 years we've seen the consequences of this power being used inappropriately.

The World Wide Web initially did what it was created to do: share information between medical centers. As it developed and became global, the production of technology boomed and continues to grow today. However, as mentioned above, this power comes at a cost, and Berners-Lee even said that it could become a destroyer of worlds. Today, it feels like it had been a destroyer of at least one thing: privacy. From data selling to hacking that affects elections, a lot of...we'll call them, less than positive actions, have altered the lives of individuals and created a level of paranoia not seen since the advent of nuclear weapons, if ever. Berners-Lee did create the World Wide Web Foundation in an effort to "fight for digital equality". In other words, they're trying to return the Web to the people by taking the power away from corporations like Google and Amazon (Google removed "Don't Be Evil" from there Code of Conduct in 2018. That should say enough). The World Wide Web is one of the most revolutionary inventions in recent history, and maybe even human history considering how important it has become in our lives. However, its initial purpose has been lost and has been hurting millions of people. I hope Berners-Lee succeeds in his efforts, and I'm sure everyone else would the second they hear about it, unless you're Google I guess.