Reclaiming the open web: a story about big tech, platforms and millennial dreams of a connected web
Room A | Thu 22 Jan 1:30 p.m.–2:15 p.m.
Presented by
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Milly Schmidt
https://www.millyschmidt.me
I'm a design leader, currently at Atlassian. My background traverses Drupal, PHP, front-end engineering, UX design and research, and product and design leadership roles. I have mainly worked in startup and scaleup orgs, with the latest part of my career in big tech. I'm interested in how tech and culture intersect, and how technology changes how we think about creativity, property and community.
Milly Schmidt
https://www.millyschmidt.me
I'm a design leader, currently at Atlassian. My background traverses Drupal, PHP, front-end engineering, UX design and research, and product and design leadership roles. I have mainly worked in startup and scaleup orgs, with the latest part of my career in big tech. I'm interested in how tech and culture intersect, and how technology changes how we think about creativity, property and community.
Abstract
In the 2000s, a generation of nerds got online and found a wonderful place where you could learn to code, make things, share your art, be part of communities and feel welcomed. We blogged, we vlogged, we shared, we posted, we followed and we were followed. We found a beautiful world where we could connect with our friends and make new ones, all across the globe, and find the people who liked the same things we liked and feel less alone.
We signed up for platform after platform, excited about the promise of a hyper-personalised web, where we would see recommendations and content based on our specific interests. We knew there might be some risks, but we thought it was worth it.
In the 20 years or so since then, things have changed. The platforms that once connected us have mutated, transformed under a grim late capitalist ethos to be not just extractive, but no longer even for us. We're not even posting anymore, just watching ads and influencer content, or wading through AI slop and political misinformation. Worse still, even our houses are infected with spyware and big tech devices, forcing us ever more into a bubble where community is nowhere to be seen. And on top of everything, our data is being sold, not just to advertisers, but to the people who seek to undermine democracy and care little for consensus reality and the concept of "truth".
Millennials face a reckoning: how do we get out of this mess? How do we find our way back to the promises of the early web, where we could connect with communities, friends and family, find joy and creativity and learning? And more importantly, what principles should we hold to ensure we don't make these mistakes again?
We have lost a lot of what made the early internet good, but it's not gone forever. Open source, right to repair and other movements have laid the important foundations for principles we can use to ensure we don't give up too much of the internet to billionaires and oligarchs who want to extract data for profit but care little about our lives and connections. Let's explore what happened, where we are and some ways out of it.
In the 2000s, a generation of nerds got online and found a wonderful place where you could learn to code, make things, share your art, be part of communities and feel welcomed. We blogged, we vlogged, we shared, we posted, we followed and we were followed. We found a beautiful world where we could connect with our friends and make new ones, all across the globe, and find the people who liked the same things we liked and feel less alone. We signed up for platform after platform, excited about the promise of a hyper-personalised web, where we would see recommendations and content based on our specific interests. We knew there might be some risks, but we thought it was worth it. In the 20 years or so since then, things have changed. The platforms that once connected us have mutated, transformed under a grim late capitalist ethos to be not just extractive, but no longer even for us. We're not even posting anymore, just watching ads and influencer content, or wading through AI slop and political misinformation. Worse still, even our houses are infected with spyware and big tech devices, forcing us ever more into a bubble where community is nowhere to be seen. And on top of everything, our data is being sold, not just to advertisers, but to the people who seek to undermine democracy and care little for consensus reality and the concept of "truth". Millennials face a reckoning: how do we get out of this mess? How do we find our way back to the promises of the early web, where we could connect with communities, friends and family, find joy and creativity and learning? And more importantly, what principles should we hold to ensure we don't make these mistakes again? We have lost a lot of what made the early internet good, but it's not gone forever. Open source, right to repair and other movements have laid the important foundations for principles we can use to ensure we don't give up too much of the internet to billionaires and oligarchs who want to extract data for profit but care little about our lives and connections. Let's explore what happened, where we are and some ways out of it.