It's a classic case of engineers thinking they can solve people-problems with technical solutions. Both the thing that makes the web so important (a critical mass of adoption) and the things that are ruining it (Google's monopoly, adtech, product-over-engineering mentality) are societal. You can make pristine new monuments to your personal vision for the web all day long, but no amount of engineering by itself will have the tiniest impact on this status-quo. Changing things requires changing minds - of product managers, of legislators, etc.
> It's a classic case of engineers thinking they can solve people-problems with technical solutions.
Linux, Wikipedia and a number of other proves this is not the entire story.
If the new <x> is good/fast/cheap enough people will sometimes start using it.
Often this is gets great help from the incumbent solution being either really bad and/or slow and/or expensive.
This way of thinking is not just not entirely correct but more importantly it is demotivating. Maybe what we do won't succeed but for me it sure beats watching more TV :-)
Does Wikipedia count as a technical solution? I don't think the tech does anything without the people editing it. I believe it's the policy ("everyone can edit") that made the advancement, not the specific system they built to allow it.
I agree on the second point, but it's more by accident in my opinion. If the technical solution leads to people finding it easier or cheaper to do something, they'll adopt it. Whether it's new, good, pristine, perfect, free & open etc, doesn't matter. It has to make their life easier, save them time and/or money or otherwise enhance the experience, that's what counts.
I don't think that's necessarily true. What is true is that the impact of new technology is not determined by tech visionaries alone and not even mostly by them.
But new technology has had a dramatic impact on societies in the past, disrupting monopolies, creating new ones, confronting society with new choices, opportunities and challenges.
Technology can force a rethink. It cannot force outcomes.
