Unidirectionality of links is a major flaw in the design of the Web.
As cybernetics would say, it is time to steer the ship, because “if you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading” (Lao Tzu). It is time to iterate the Web, and therefore, our relationship with it.
The very inventor of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, thinks the same. His proposal emphasizes and focuses on the importance of updating the link as we know it now. Seems that maybe it is time to truly interconnect all the pieces of information that compose the Web.
It is impossible to know with certainty what will happen when we expose a new creation to the world, how it will behave, what the consequences will be. From the present, we can only imagine and speculate, and good or bad intentions may or may not influence the final result. The only certainty we have about the future is that it is uncertain.
This does not exempt us from the responsibility of our actions. There will always be bad actors trying to exploit the system for a personal benefit, but with the appropriate access to resources and information, we can cooperate not only to mitigate the negative effects but also to provide the necessary environment for collective development.
The Web has matured. Its users also did it and the new generations have grown up with the Web as an integral part of their reality. We invented new technologies, improved old ones and have systems and tools at our disposal that we didn’t have before.
It is time to review the past, what happened and what did not, learn from all the accumulated experience and outline a plan that allows us to act differently if we really want to overcome the urgencies of the present while working collectively for a long-lasting positive impact for our society and for the rest of the ecosystem.