20 years? More like somewhere between 30 to 40 if we count early WWW and the Gopher+Usenet that came before it. The GPL isn’t quite that old, but the spirit behind it sure is. If we count early home-computer clubs back in the 70’s (like the one that birthed the original Apple) or the ham-radio crowd that came before it, we can push into 50+ year territory, easy.
I hadn’t considered AI being a paywall around the whole WWW but now that you mention it, it kind of looks that way. I’ve opined elsewhere that social media companies (e.g. Facebook) are building walled-gardens to keep eyeballs and attention-spans locked on their brand of reality. This would just be another avenue of attack in that strategy.
I remember frequenting MOOs and IRC, and downloading guitar tabs and chords off OLGA using clients in DOS back in the early 90s. Over 30 years ago. The Internet today is unrecognizable by comparison.
20 years? More like somewhere between 30 to 40 if we count early WWW and the Gopher+Usenet that came before it. The GPL isn’t quite that old, but the spirit behind it sure is. If we count early home-computer clubs back in the 70’s (like the one that birthed the original Apple) or the ham-radio crowd that came before it, we can push into 50+ year territory, easy.
I hadn’t considered AI being a paywall around the whole WWW but now that you mention it, it kind of looks that way. I’ve opined elsewhere that social media companies (e.g. Facebook) are building walled-gardens to keep eyeballs and attention-spans locked on their brand of reality. This would just be another avenue of attack in that strategy.
I remember frequenting MOOs and IRC, and downloading guitar tabs and chords off OLGA using clients in DOS back in the early 90s. Over 30 years ago. The Internet today is unrecognizable by comparison.