what came to my mind today in the morning fits perfectly with tim berners-lee's concerns about the world wide web: i consider it highly likely that the way the web was built in the past will be undermined by the people who "may have less patience in waiting on the rule makers to deal with their concerns and push their own agenda, defining their own rules".

those people, mainly marketmaniacs, ipodelics and governmental authorities, will re-establish their own philosophy with the parameters of the internet (or vice versa, if i am lucky). and they will do it insanely fast, no matter how much they will have been warned. speed is their sacred mean to achieve growth in the end.

they are not the only conservative, egocentric power raising its head: several times i had to cope with some old, lardy and narcistic net-farts who already got their respect for what they might have done in the 80's when electronic publishing meant btx, resp. minitel, or even worse "remote offset printing via satellite". man, they can give you a hard time... (i assume that in 10, 20 years i will be in their shoes. so what. the time is now for me to play a different role).

it's not that there is any struggle lost / won for any side, yet. but i expect the giggling internet sandbox days to be definitely over (well, not for the rest of us...). and something new will surely come – duh! it's there already! the autonomous, autodidactic biodata hacker (i know this sounds cheesy but think of it yourself) is an exciting as well as frightening thought full of new scenarios and visions.