We Buried the Web Under Too Much Gunk

In How the Web Got Gunked, Dave Winer makes a good point about what we lost as the web became dominated by platforms.

The web was built from simple, replaceable parts. You could publish somewhere, link somewhere else, choose your own tools, and move without asking a platform for permission.

Then we gradually replaced that with accounts, proprietary feeds, tracking, engagement algorithms, app stores, closed APIs, and content trapped inside services that do not want people to leave. Dave describes social networks as stripping writing down by removing features such as titles, editing, and meaningful links while locking our words inside their walls.

“Every part is replaceable. If one is not, it’s not part of the web.”

That may be the simplest test for whether something truly belongs to the open web.

Can I replace the writing tool? Can I choose another reader? Can I move my work? Can someone else build a compatible service without getting permission from the company in the middle?

We did not lose the web because its original ideas stopped working. We buried those ideas beneath layers of unnecessary gunk and became accustomed to calling the result progress.

Read Dave Winer’s How the Web Got Gunked.