After fifteen years of struggle to make the Internet safer and more accessible, the World Wide Web Foundation is closing. This was reported by The Register.
In a letter on the organization’s website, its co-founders, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Rosemary Leith, explain that the mission of the World Wide Web Foundation has been accomplished to some extent and that a new struggle must be waged.
According to them, at the time the foundation was founded in 2009, just over 20% of the world’s population had access to the Internet, and relatively few organizations were trying to change this situation.
A decade and a half later, when almost 70% of the world is online, there are many similar non-governmental organizations trying to make the world wide web more accessible.
The co-founders are grateful to their supporters, who allowed them to make significant progress on the issue of Internet access and affordability. But the problems faced by the network have changed. The Foundation believes that other human rights groups can continue this work.
According to the founders, one of the most pressing problems is the business model of social networks, which turns user data into a commodity and concentrates power in the hands of platforms, which contradicts Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s original vision of the Internet.
To counter this threat, he intends to liquidate his foundation to focus on decentralized technologies.
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