We need to figure out what kind of Internet we want to have.
The business model currently funding and pushing the growth of the Internet is based upon monetizing a base of users who come to a project and use it for free, or for a nominal price.
The user takes advantage of the content/service/process for free. And, as a result, the user is so enamored with the content/service/process that they keep coming back over and over again, building a trust based relationship with the creator/creators of the project. Subsequently, in order to fund the project, there are hopefully so many users that an advertiser has no choice but to put advertisements in front of a group of eyeballs with whom the project owner has built a relationship.
This is the model underlying Facebook. The nominal fee model (a subscription-based model) underlies LinkedIn, journalism models, ecommerce platforms and other content/service/process platforms.
Web 2.0 is what everyone is talking about now, but Web 3.0 is really, where the Internet has to move to.
Web 3.0 is beyond just the Internet of Things. Web 3.0 is the Internet as Everything. Web 3.0 is the Internet waging active battle with the last, sticky remnants of the world built through the assumptions of the Industrial Revolution. This is a world created around the rules, laws and policies, created by politicians and people to keep the common democratization of the Internet out of the hands of the common people before the Internet.
Here’s a question: Why is it that there aren’t any internet connected roads?
It has nothing to do with technological innovations such as creating concrete that can communicate with strips on the road. Or with computer chips that can talk to your car. Or signs and traffic signals that talk to the road, the car and each other.
The reason there aren’t roads that are intelligent is not a smart car issues, no matter what Google Cars would have you think.
The issue is really laws and regulations.
Laws are the last bastion of the Industrial revolution world that have yet to fall to the unending sweep of the Internet. We see the beginnings of this with our current thrashing around privacy, data, and “who owns the future” (either you or a corporation) but once we settle all of this we will have new business models that will allows the Internet to be truly “baked in”.
Then, once that happens, the sky truly will be the limit.
-Peace Be With You All-
Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
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