Creator of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee has unveiled his plans to create a new decentralized
Tim Berners-Lee is known for creating the world wide web, i.e., the internet you know today. More than two decades later, Tim is working to free the internet from the clutches of corporate giants and give the power back to the people via a decentralized web.
Berners-Lee was unhappy with the way ‘powerful forces’ of the internet handle data of the users for their own agenda. So he started working on his own open source project Solid “to restore the power and agency of individuals on the web.”
Solid changes the current model where users have to hand over personal data to digital giants in exchange for perceived value. As we’ve all discovered, this hasn’t been in our best interests. Solid is how we evolve the web in order to restore balance — by giving every one of us complete control over data, personal or not, in a revolutionary way.
Basically, Solid is a platform built using the existing web where you create own ‘pods’ (personal data store). You decide where this pod will be hosted, who will access which data element and how the data will be shared through this pod.
Berners-Lee believes that Solid “will empower individuals, developers and businesses with entirely new ways to conceive, build and find innovative, trusted and beneficial applications and services.”
Developers need to integrate Solid into their apps and sites. Solid is still in the early stages so there are no apps for now but the project website claims that “the first wave of Solid apps are being created now.”
Berners-Lee has created a startup called Inrupt and has taken a sabbatical from MIT to work full-time on Solid and to take it “from the vision of a few to the reality of many.”
If you are interested in Solid, learn how to create apps or contribute to the project in your own way. Of course, it will take a lot of effort to build and drive the broad adoption of Solid so every bit of contribution will count to the success of a decentralized web.
Do you think a decentralized web will be a reality? What do you think of decentralized web in general and project Solid in particular?
