Could the Web Not be Invented Today?

An anonymous reader writes " Corante's Copyfight has a piece up about this new column in the Financial Times by James Boyle celebrating (a few days on the early side) the 15th anniversary of Berners-Lee's first draft of a web page . The hook is this question: What would happen if the Web were invented today? From the article: 'What would a web designed by the World Intellectual Property Organisation or the Disney Corporation have looked like? It would have looked more like pay-television, or Minitel, the French computer network. Beforehand, the logic of control always makes sense. Allow anyone to connect to the network? Anyone to decide what content to put up? That is a recipe for piracy and pornography. And of course it is. But it is also much, much more...The lawyers have learnt their lesson now...When the next disruptive communications technology - the next worldwide web - is thought up, the lawyers and the logic of control will be much more evident. That is not a happy thought.'"

Comments

Thanks Tim!

[DDiabolical]

It's completely down to Tim Berners Lee that the internet is a free and open as it currently is. Preceding the Linux or the GNU, he was a real hacker creating something that he couldn't have known would change the world. He did it without profit in mind and as such it's been allowed to flourish.

Sure, the military may have created the fundamentals, but Tim was the first to put them to good use :P

Re:Disruptive technologies can't be controlled.

[sleeper0]

Agreed. Why on earth wouldn't http and html be invented today? Only because possibly the niche is already filled. Does a would be inventor have to run their protocol by the property lawyers or disney before it gets popular now? Someone should inform Bram Cohen. I'm pretty sure the printing press, telegraph, radio, television, telephones and more were all disruptive technologies for some reason or another in their day. Thinking we've hit some kind of wall isn't looking very hard at the issue.

Minitel

[Anne Honime]

I think the minitel comparison is completely unfair ; minitel was operated on normal telephone lines, therefore, anybody with a line and a computer could open a non-profit minitel service or a bbs, and many did. Now long forgotten french home computers made by Thomson were sharing their charset (no ascii) with minitel for exactly that purpose.

At the time it was released (begining of the 80's), minitel was probably one of the most advanced and low cost electronic net in the world, it greatly helped many people to get acquainted with technology. And it had porn too.

Lack of evolution and internet competition killed it, but for 15 years I can't think of anything more or less competing with it anywhere in the world in terms of accessibility and richness of content. And it delivered for (almost) free ! The terminal was lended by France Telecom to anybody at no cost. You paid for the service, at the price of a (sometimes premium) communication. Not really cheap, but a strong incentive for sure.

For certain services, I still use it today, because minitel warrants the user he's talking to the right person (no MIM hack), and the price has no hidden traps.

Not Fair Comparaison

[trollable]

Your comparaison with the french minitel is not fair, IMHO. If the internet would look like the minitel, it would be:

1) Cheaper
At that time, connections were charger per minute. The range for the minitel was between $0.05 and $2.00, the range for the internet started at $0.35. Addtionaly, the terminal was FREE.

2) More used
There was millions of minitel users in France, and only tens of thousands of internet ones.

3) Faster
Well, the minitel modem was only 1200-bps, while you could get a 9600-bps one for the internet. However, the route was direct and the pages much lighter. So the time-per-page was lower.

4) Styled
The minitel was a character terminal, black and white. Colors and graphics were introduced later. Same for the web. But you could get some effects.

5) More organised
The minitel had a single namespace (mainly 3615). Not a really good thing but definitively more organised and controled.

Finaly, the minitel could be connected to a PC (via serial). You could use it confortably from your PC or you could connect BBS. You could even host your own server. At that time, it was almost impossible on the internet.

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http://www.milliondollarscreenshot.com/

Excellent!!!

[Archeopteryx]

You are the ONLY one to have gotten the reference; Shakespeare's "Henry VI, Part Two"

From act four;

ALL God save your majesty!

CADE I thank you, good people: there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers and worship me their lord.

DICK The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

CADE Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings: but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since. How now! who's there?