
Ev Williams helped create the open web, now he’s betting against it (2016) - Tomte
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/ev-williams-is-the-forrest-gump-of-the-internet/486899/?single_page=true
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guelo
Words have lost all meaning when the asshole that introduced twitter's
tracking url shorteners is said to have helped create the open web.

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OJFord
Ugh I hate those things. Enable scripts because the link behind the text
'domain.tld' is actually t.co/stupidtwitter and now you want to (track and)
redirect me to the thing I clicked on in the first place?

Lame. I often stop there.

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overcast
What's amazing is that none of his ventures were ever profitable that I know
of. He made all of his cash off of acquisitions.

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AndrewKemendo
_Of all the American internet industry’s critical events (other than that
fateful night in Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room), odds are good that Williams was
there or knew someone present._

That's why in my opinion. He probably has the best network in the valley.

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
He came from outside the valley, started from zero, and earned his way to this
so called "network" by building things that got people excited.

~~~
seppin
> He came from outside the valley

who didn't? It's not Hollywood, there are no legacy cases

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singersouler
Nah it's not just pure coincidence that a 4/5 vcs and founders have similar
economic backgrounds.

Ev came from an unusually humble background for Silicon Valley.

Steve Jobs was from Silicon Valley but grew up poor.

Reid Hoffman's mom hooked him up with vc money and a network, cause she was a
rich lawyer at a fancy firm iirc.

Very few people that grew up poor are successful in Silicon Valley but they
may be the most impactful as a population.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> Steve Jobs was from Silicon Valley but grew up poor.

"Poor" may be stretching things a bit.

~~~
huxley
Compared to most Silicon Valley founders he was, his adoptive parents were
blue collar with no college education. His dad made most of his money as a
repo man.

Part of the agreement his biological mother made with the Jobs family to allow
them to adopt was that Steve had to go to college.

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riffic
Twitter, a centralized walled garden, can not be an example of the open web.

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retube
> and a communication tool so powerful that it could abort war.

Ha. If anything the clash of cultures that the web facilitates is more likely
to start wars.

~~~
cwingrav
Communication can spread many things. If used to connect people and promote
understanding, people can keep governments from war. If used to spread rumors
and fear, people will push government towards war.

~~~
laughinghan
That doesn't contradict GP. I think it's quite uncontroversial that
telecommunications _can_ do both of those things. The more controversial and,
not coincidentally, more interesting question is, on balance, which one of
those things _does_ it do? Or is its marginal effect negligible compared to
other forces?

I think I'm somewhere in the "negligible" to "good" camp, but since I
indirectly promote the Internet, I'm interested in reasons to believe it might
do more harm than good. Remember The End of History? It's hard to deny that
many Western liberal democratic institutions have at least superficially
appeared to decline since then, and that at least superficially it appears
that telecommunications played a non-negligible role.

Certainly all those points are debatable, but it's hard to deny why someone
would argue for them, right?

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jtraffic
I wonder how this article would be different had it been written after Medium
introduced its new funding model. For one thing, a bunch of those
publications, like _The Awl_ are no longer there.

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igravious
“(A similar sentiment sparked the creation of public broadcast media in the
1970s.)”

Something to ponder. May be the only alternative option. But on a global
scale, cuz the internets know no national boundaries.

Also, notice how so not focused on the actual tech this article is. How it's
all about ideals and grand sweeping narratives. It is this that turns text-
boxes into something with cultural value. It's simultaneously bathetic and
comical.

~~~
benwerd
It's interesting to think about what global public media might look like. Does
Wikipedia offer a decent model?

The trick is balancing public-service operations with the ability to make
quick decisions and maintain a user-centered design. Many open source projects
go off the rails by adding too many layers of bureaucracy, and it's important
that something like this is able to react quickly and compete with non-public
versions. (How the BBC competes with ITV in the UK is analogous: the quality
and finger on the cultural pulse is at least as good.)

I think the time is right for someone to try this. The question is, who, and
where does the initial funding come from?

(Maybe it can come from Ev?)

~~~
a_w
I have always thought that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet should give at least
10% of their donations to PBS/NPR or even start their own not for profit media
organization. The nation/world needs a public broadcasting service that isn't
dependent on advertising. I have actually stopped listening to NPR because it
full of commercials now (I now listen to BBC Radio 4 instead). There were
hardly any commercials a decade or two ago on either NPR or PBS.

~~~
goialoq
That gets called globalist (or nationalist, or whateverist) propaganda

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/05/05/billionair...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/05/05/billionaires-
battle-over-media-influence-koch-bros-murdoch-vs-sorosbuffettge/#60bf48606fbf)

[https://knightfoundation.org/](https://knightfoundation.org/) seems to avoid
getting hate, though

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kapauldo
It's Ry from wufph.

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okket
"Shitty pop reference headlines for 100, please"

~~~
ronilan
"This is Rick Astley's most famous song"

