The latest, and this week's Penning Down The Thoughts with Penning's Co-founder & CEO, Jimmie Steinbeck taking the Pen Team and our readers further down the "rabbit hole", which time from what changed the world forever; the creating, meaning, and impact of the world wide web, and how it correlates directly with what is recently known as Web3. The latter mentioned will be covered in a future post from the series, but this time, sit back, kick back, or however and where ever you are. Have a good read.
THE FIRST WHITEPAPER
In the early 90s, Tim Berners-Lee introduced the World Wide Web as a 20-page proposal, and soon, some browsers made it more accessible and user-friendly for the general public. I think that the Internet is going to be one of the major forces in reducing the role of Government. The one thing that's missing, but that will soon be developed, is a reliable e-cash.
Still, few understood the potential of this new tech. From people who thought it would just be the world's greatest library, to some of the early cypherpunks, who are the direct forefathers of crypto, and certainly blockchain-type ideas, who thought much as today, that it would create a kind of a Commons that was outside of the direct control and normal laws of Governments. That's ironic because the US Government funded it in the first place. The spiritual forefathers of crypto who built the early Internet thought it was a new technology for global freedom of expression and a blank canvas upon which they could build their dreams. Boy, that sounds familiar!
And the media? They didn't quite know what to make of this new thing either. But sure enough, they found juicy stories about the dark side of it. Which was the Internet is full of criminals, pedophiles, and pornographers. And it's too dangerous to use your credit card on it. It's full of scams. We're seeing the same story now We envision technology as if it were autonomous as if it were simply outside of human and social experience. But we see our technologies that become shaped by commercial interests, by political and regulatory infrastructure, and by actors who are acting for many reasons, right?
CONNECT(TROLL)ING THE WORLD
The big telecoms wanted his thoughts on a little idea they were kicking around. They had a meeting where they tried to figure out how they could buy the Internet. If they couldn't kill it, well why not own it? well, why don't you buy the world economy, then you can own everything. Why don't you buy the weather, then you can control that too.
Today, with the World Wide Web, we can stand on giant, digital soapboxes using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We can share our ideas, or start a fight, with anyone on the planet. Well, almost anyone. Of 65 countries studied, China has the least free Internet, worse than Iran, Cuba, or Syria.
A police force of more than two million cybercops and the world's most sophisticated Artificial Intelligence system keep China's web content clean and users in check. So sorry to break it to you, but there's no longer a World Wide Web.
SPLINTERNET
Welcome to the Splinternet. No, it's not just in China. In Russia, Wikipedia is illegal. Facebook is outlawed in Bangladesh. There's no WhatsApp in Dubai. Twitter was banned in Turkey after news about Government corruption spread. And Saudi Arabia shut down the region's largest news services, Al Jazeera and the BBC. Meanwhile, in India, the entire web has been turned off more than 300 times in the past years.
So even though they tried to shut down or bye the internet back in the 90th and we see countries with downtime and restrictions, the internet or the World Wide Web is still here, still live, and the same thing will be told about blockchain and crypto assets in the future to come.
What the internet is for communication and sharing knowledge, the blockchain and digital assets or money will be for financial freedom and store of value.
Penning down the thoughts” is a series compiled by the CEO and Co-Founder of Penning, Jimmie Hansen Steinbeck. A compilation of his vast experience, knowledge, failures, successes, know-how & ideas. Jimmie has spent the last decade (almost since the birth of bitcoin), working in the crypto, blockchain (also known as Web3) space, as an investor, entrepreneur, and expert advisor to numerous crypto companies.