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[The internet] ought to be like clay, rather than a sculpture that you observe from a distance.
Tim Berners-Lee
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The internet should be interactive and malleable, allowing users to shape it actively.

Tim Berners-Lee emphasizes that the nature of the internet should be dynamic and participatory, much like clay, rather than a static piece of art that people merely watch. This highlights the potential for user creativity and involvement in shaping online experiences, advocating for an internet that empowers individuals to contribute and modify rather than simply consume.

Themes

InternetCreativityParticipationTechnologyInteraction

In practice

Example use cases

In a tech conference discussing the future of the web.

More from Tim Berners-Lee

The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.
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The people who designed the tools that make the Net run had their own ideas for the future.
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Technology innovation is starting to explode and having open-source material out there really helps this explosion. You get students and researchers involved and you get people coming through and building start ups based on open source products.
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One way to think about the magnitude of the changes to come is to think about how you went about your business before powerful Web search engines. You probably wouldn't have imagined that a world of answers would be available to you in under a second. The next set of advances will have an different effect, but similar in magnitude.
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Software companies should take more responsibility for security holes, especially in browsers and e-mail clients. There are some straightforward things the industry should be doing right now to fix things, and I don't know why they haven't been done yet.
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We could say we want the Web to reflect a vision of the world where everything is done democratically. To do that, we get computers to talk with each other in such a way as to promote that ideal.
Tim Berners-LeeRead

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