Today, less than 25 years after the dot.com bubble first began inflating, the World Wide Web is a ubiquitous part of many peoples' daily lives. Globally, more than 4.33 billion people have internet access, as connectivity continues to climb. Indeed, this infrastructure is central to the way that we interact with friends, conduct business, and build toward the future.
Of course, as most people recognize, the internet isn't without its flaws. Accessibility and novelty have given way to incredible concerns about privacy, fair use, safety, and a litany of other threats.
Even one of the inventors of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee, notes its shortcomings. In a 2017 op-ed for The Guardian, Mr. Berners-Lee outlined several problems that plague the modern internet, including concerns about data privacy, misinformation, and transparency.
More than two years later, his insights remain troublingly prescient; however, while solutions were allusive when Mr. Berners-Lee first penned his article, they are now within reach.
Problems & Solutions
#1 We've lost control of our personal data
Some of the biggest tech companies in the world have built their empires on the backs of their customers' personal data. In many ways, data is the most valuable resource of the digital age, and this economic model has become problematic for users.
Not only are data breaches becoming increasingly prominent and prolific, compromising copious amounts of personal information each time one of these events makes headlines, but data is primed for misuse.
The examples of data misuse and abuse are plentiful. Perhaps most notably, Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal underscored the depths to which many tech companies will go to capitalize on their customers' data.
This problematic power dynamic, in which users provide tech platforms with their most intimate details in exchange for the privilege of viewing targeted advertisements, was observed by the World Economic Forum, which asked the question: "Data is the oil of the digital world. What if tech giants had to buy it from us?".
It's an intriguing question, and it's one the team behind the Brave browser has a ready solution for.
Rather than giving away their time and attention for free, the Brave browser uses a digital currency, its native Basic Attention Token (BAT), to return value to users. The Brave browser automatically blocks trackers, ads, and popups. Not only does this make the internet work faster, but it positions users to capitalize on their data and attention.
For instance, Brave allows users to tip their favorite content producers, so they see more of the content that they want, and it enables them to be paid in BAT for viewing advertising or providing personal information.
#2 It's too easy for misinformation to spread on the web
The internet is replete with information, the veracity of which is questionable at best. Unfortunately, this information - both true and false - multiplies and spreads, as likes, shares, and views multiply the messages millions of times over.
This problem seemingly has no bounds, as everything from fake news to deep fakes gets an equal footing on the internet without a referee. Google's curious attempt to thwart scammers using deep fakes is unlikely to solve the problem any time soon. Moreover, bots and troll farms continue to churn out new content and deceiving people at scale.
At the same time, political leaders are manipulating the internet, harnessing this mess for their own political gain. In November 2018, the Russian government changed a factual news story over it's recognized propaganda tool, Sputnik. It altered its content to make it more sympathetic to the country's President, Vladimir Putin. While this behavior is shocking, it's far from abnormal, as versions and revisions are normative in a digital environment that embraces ambiguity and change.
The solution, in part, resides in decentralization. Projects like Arweave provide a place, known as the Permaweb, where anyone can own and run secure web apps. More importantly, Arweave brings permanence and transparency to an infrastructure currently obstructed by centralized institutions that control the internet.
For example, Arweave was able to identify the changes to the factual story about the Russian military incident when an unknown user archived the original, factual, article - before it was removed.
Simply put, Arweave's Permaweb kept the truth alive by preventing misinformation from slipping into the stream of information that circulates on the internet. Arweave is a chance to remake the Internet in a user-friendly, decentralized, and reliable way.
Imagine, for instance, if the New York Times readers demanded every article was stored on the Permaweb as soon as he went live. Wouldn't that increase transparency and accountability for fake news, knowing proof is there forever?
#3 Political advertising online needs transparency and understanding
In the past several years, politics and the internet have collided in unprecedented ways, veritably weaponizing the personal data and misinformation that powers the web.
Meanwhile, tech platforms are, in large part, declining to police content on their platforms. Facebook has said that it won't police political speech, even as false or misleading political ads fly through its ecosystem.
To be fair, policing political speech can be uniquely challenging, and opens up a debate on liberty. What is considered political speech? Is twisting the truth considered a lie when conducted by a politician?
A solution isn't here yet, and in the meantime the battle between free speech and blunt propaganda is becoming a major one.
Infrastructure Under Construction
No, the internet isn't perfect. However, it has ushered in unparalleled opportunities for billions of people, and we shouldn't just throw away the baby with the bathwater.
Instead, we should look to continually improve on this infrastructure, ensuring that connectivity creates value for everyone. Blockchain technology and the platforms that embrace its ethos present that solution.
The era of decentralization brings an incentive structure and accountability to an ecosystem that desperately needs to be reoriented. Fortunately, that change is already here, and reach is continually expanding.
