Whose Web is it anyway?

I can answer that question right away. It`s everyone`s, sadly.

I say "sadly" with some hesitation, because it makes me sound like a geek. In reality I`m on an altogether parallel plane, along with other people who don`t take technology seriously enough to mind who uses it.

But for most other people, here`s how I reckon it works. No matter where you are on the geek scale, you will, at some point, begin to feel the masses crowding in on you, as technology increases in popularity - guaranteed. And the more of a tech high priest you are, the sooner it happens to you.

Tech high priests are the kinds of people who curse when they`re made to point and click in a graphical environment. They`d rather be working against a monochrome backdrop with antsy code. They hated the first bulletin boards, and they can`t get over the fact that all browsers offer file transfer protocol. The question they know they cannot ask, because nobody can relate anymore, is: can`t we leave anything out of reach of the idiots? They feel technology has no business being business-minded, and should never have been sold to fools. They want the Web back.

So they take it back. Which brings me to my story.

I saw pictures of the recent Linux Professional Institute (LPI) certification event, with one particular character catching my eye, and obviously that of the photographer, who caught his shirt slogan as the centrepiece of one shot.

The LPI was staging a world record with more than 200 hopefuls taking various Linux exams, and the photo subject in question had a T-shirt on that said "TAKE THE WEB BACK".

I wondered what this could mean. Tracking the guy down and asking him would probably not have helped, so I was forced to remain intrigued for days. As I lounged back in my chair just now, wondering what to write in my column this time, the spectre of the black T-shirted dude suddenly appeared to me again.

Now HE was good for a column, I thought. He was obviously one of those guys who read Cryptonomicon and liked it beyond description. I won`t risk any closer description, because for all I know he might mean it literally.

But what was he about? I reckon he`s one of those people who are smack at the bleeding-edge of the leadership quadrant of geekdom. He can`t stand people who blunder through cellphones that don`t have the Nokia menu system, or say "bytes" when they mean "bits". He feels the whole damn place has become too crowded, and I think he`s probably been personally responsible for sabotaging some prime information capital in his time. Obviously, I`m making all of this up, so cool it, whoever you are.

They don`t know what they want, they don`t know where to go, and they`re killing the performance of the Web.

Carel Alberts, Special Editions Editor, ITWeb Brainstorm

But seriously, folks, it is a funny thing. We`ll have to think about this at one time or another: Whose Web is it anyway? Should it really be everyone`s? What about the freedoms and the immense potential of free information that go out the door when everyone joins in?

I think it`s like this - in the old days, somewhere towards the end of the previous century, a couple of people in jobs with bandwidth and the need and knowledge to use the Web had a good thing going for themselves. Drunk with the possibilities of the Internet, they could move about freely, provided they knew what they wanted and where to go.

Now, it`s all gone to hell. Idiots everywhere send chain mails and huge graphics all over the place, and you can`t go anywhere without encountering millions who simply don`t "get it".

They don`t know what they want, they don`t know where to go, and they`re killing the performance of the Web.

Because they`re suddenly there, and they`re getting themselves and their companies infected with all sorts of two-bit code nobody of sane mind would let in, the lawyers, politicians, industry bodies and corporate flunkeys are suddenly all in on the act, regulating what used to be a beautiful thing out of existence.

The only thing for it, a guy like the one with the black T-shirt might say, is to take it all back. How? By making it unusable to fools. And that`s the real reason why the Internet is virtually unusable, to all but some, if you want my opinion.

Some would say it`s a good thing. If freedom of speech is to be useful, let`s have people with the capacity for thought necessary to voice a good opinion voicing it. If there is to be freedom of information, let only the people who can digest it have it. If there is to be bandwidth, let it be used by people with something useful to pass along or download.

But I don`t know. I don`t think it`s really the place of anyone, columnists included, to say who belongs where. I think we probably have to be tolerant of idiots. If it really becomes too crowded, one can always go somewhere else, rather than making the neighbourhood an unfriendly place. Cyberspace is hardly the final frontier, and it still has many uncharted territories.