#HappyBirthdayWWW {The World Wide Web 35 Years On}
Berners-Lee also considered calling his system ‘The Information Mine’ but figured that didn’t have a good enough ring to it. Fast forward to 2026 and the World Wide Web, as it was ultimately christened – eventually just becoming the ‘web’, celebrates its public 35th birthday. And it’s something well worth celebrating.
Three and a half decades of online social networking, individual blogging, independent fundraising, tacky TikTok dancing, hyper-addictive shopping, Instagram bragging, international gaming, Uber-booking, and Wiki-leaking. Of cute kittens-falling-in-love-with-elephants videos, flash-in-the-pan YouTube sensations, digital matchmaking, Hightail file-sharing, selfie infatuations, and virtual bullying. Not to mention the endless abyss of porn available at our grubby fingertips.
Without the World Wide Web, we wouldn’t be able to sum up the day’s news in a strict number of characters or less (but, really, who still uses X?). We wouldn’t have the privilege of keeping in touch with old friends whom we actually couldn’t be bothered sharing pleasantries with face-to-face. And we certainly wouldn’t be able to instantly find the answer to the question, “What crap has Kim Kardashian been up to today?”
And now that Ai has arrived, well, the party’s just begun.
Without the information superhighway (as it was once affectionately referred to) we’d be void of all the useful information that makes us, er, smarter. And all the useless information that makes us think “we’re smarter that that”. We’d have no idea if the trains were running on time until we’d heard some codger tell us two hours too late on the morning ‘news’. We wouldn’t get to hear snippets of the latest music releases before committing a full 99 cents to download a song. And, yes, we wouldn’t be able to illegally download the occasional bootleg.
The World Wide Web offers us mini doses of enlightenment every second of every day. Without it, it’d be like living in the dark ages. On a more profound note, it has opened the floodgates of democracy, allowing us to have our say on virtually any topic or subject, gradually chipping away at centuries-old ideological and social-behavioural constructs (ie: not always the right ways to think and behave).
“The web is an artificial creation, as are our laws and our constitutions. We can choose how they work, or we can make new ones. It’s our choice.”
To this day, Berners-Lee is optimistic about a medium that allows for “free and uncensored” commentary, and has expressed his concern that the democracy of the web might soon be a thing of the past. He said in an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on Reddit.com (dubbed “the front page of the Internet”), “I’m concerned and excited about the web’s future. I think some monitoring of the net by government agencies is going to be needed to fight crime [but] we need to invent a new system of checks and balances with unprecedented power to be able to investigate and hold the agencies which do it accountable to the public.”
Continues the man of many wise words, “The web is an artificial creation, as are our laws and our constitutions. We can choose how they work, or we can make new ones. It’s our choice.”
On a lighter note, darling oldies might still be calling Facebook ‘MySpacebook’ but even octagenerians are adept at web-trawling today. At 56 myself, I don’t know how I would have gotten along with business and leisure if we didn’t have the web. It helps each of us get messages across even when those messages contain kooky errors; it leads to consistent and enjoyable communication (so long as you turn a blind eye to online trolling); and, even with all its linguistic blunders and information overload, it’s as entertaining as all hell. Especially when you start to teach Ai who’s the real boss in this big, messy picture.
So, Happy Birthday to you, World Wide Web. I’ll save on not buying you a Hallmark card and simply sent you a few emojis instead. 😎💋🎁🍹🍰
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