Video download link | md5sum 964897440086bea71d9e7ce2d2b6ca13 Copyright Cartels Versus WWW Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: It seems clear that few large publishers and monopolists are willing to destroy the World Wide Web for personal gain; one recent manifestation of this agenda is "link tax" (charging sites for linking to other sites)

THIS topic has been on our list for a while because it's the subject of ongoing blogging/debate/media coverage in Canada. We constantly include references to it in our Daily Links, usually blog posts from Professor Michael Geist. A recent article of his (Gemini address) is shown above in the video.

"One alternative to the World Wide Web is Gemini, but there are certainly more on the way. GNUnet had a new release one fortnight ago."The gist of the problem is, a lot of the content on the World Wide Web is becoming low-quality. Shoddy 'journalism' is all too common and long-form journalism is very rare because it is considered 'expensive'. There's moreover a spam epidemic and if that's not bad enough there's an effort underway (globally, not just in Canada) to "tax" sites that link to other sites. It would undermine the very nature of the World Wide Web and mostly hurt small sites (they're unable to pay such a tax).

Perhaps it's fair to assert that the World Wide Web is outliving its usefulness. The same is true for Wikipedia, which has been derailed by corporate and political operatives. In a lot of topics it contains more propaganda (or selective 'facts') than objective information. It's not about balance but about persistence; those better funded can persist and fling crap at the wall, hoping Wikipedia lets it stick.

One alternative to the World Wide Web is Gemini, but there are certainly more on the way. GNUnet had a new release one fortnight ago. ⬆