Bookmarked:
In this read-worthy flaming letter, Joscha Jaeger responds to a claim by Facebook’s director of design Jon Lax that “the web is dying” and highlights how this framing is that of a big corporation who merely sees the web as delivery platform for their business model.
What makes me angry is how the Web itself is more and more seen solely as an environment for professional products and services. In favour of product innovation, web technology became so complex, that the average user lacks even the most basic knowledge of the Web’s core concepts and mechanisms.
The author calls to defend the web by learning (“Inspect Element and View Source, Start your own experiment, Study the Web”), teaching (“Help others, Share your work and knowledge”), and advocacy (“Spread the word, Start with your peers, Support those who fight for you”):
When they say the Web is like box a of Lego, that’s a huge underestimation. The Web is like a box of Lego, where everyone can create their own bricks, use them twice at the same time for an entirely different structure, paint them with pink dots, scratch out the trademark and round the edges, while still being able to connect them to other bricks. Around the world. At no cost.