What will the Web be like in 20 years?

Way back in 2011, I contributed to an article on The Next Web called "What will the Web be like in 20 years?".

Foolishly, I missed the 10 year anniversary, but let's see how we're doing against those predictions a little over halfway through.

My prediction for the Web?

The same speed. Faster pipes & processors – more bloated markup & JS.

Well... fuck! Bang on the money there. The web is faster than it was on dial-up. But I can't say that it's noticeably better since I got ADSL. Sure, it's faster to download big files and stream 4K video. But for day-to-day browsing? Between the unoptimised "hero" images, multi-megabytes of JS, and thousands of trackers, it sometimes feels like we've taken a step backwards in speed.

We all know that bloat expands to fill available bandwidth. But perhaps we could rein it in a little? Please?

A few of the predictions are already here. Better, smarter phones. Computers becoming pervasive and invisible. And, yes, lots of cat gifs.

Some of the other predictions are - I think it's fair to say - not quite on track.

We haven't returned to an AOL model where AT&T charge us per minute. And I don't see any path to that.

Internet censorship is a tricky one. There are some countries which routinely shut off net access. There's still a cat-and-mouse game with pirates. There are still people crying censorship when their inflammatory posts are removed. But, outside of a few jurisdictions, you remain as free as ever to criticise whoever you want.

Holograms aren't even close to real. And, no, Facebook's laughable attempts at the MeTAvErSe don't count. Perhaps Apple's iBalls (or whatever they're called) will get us to that point before 2031? But I doubt it.

There are a lot of predictions about 3D printers. Look, they're pretty nifty, but it is clear that most homes don't need an endless supply of rapidly printed plastic doodahs.

Finally, there are a couple which I still think are feasible by 2031. Take this one from Santiago Ochoa:

Companies like Google, Facebook, PayPal, Amazon, will create virtual currency systems linked to our social reputation. The more friends, posts, contacts, and comments we have, the more +1s, “like it”s or whatever points we’ll accumulate. These points will then be used to buy real things like you do now with PayPal and Amazon. Good social communicators will be able to make a living out of social networking points. Similar to Second Life but not limited to a virtual world. Our cell phones will be used as wallets and even some salaries will be paid with virtual money.

Social credit scores aren't mainstream… yet. But Twitter is experimenting giving revenue to some posters based on their social reach. Facebook's currency dreams are dead for now, but I bet another social network will try to use virtual money as its hook. Some people are, no doubt, being paid in volatile cryptotokens. And many of us use our phones as tap-to-pay wallets.

There's also this by Pedro Henrique Monteiro Padilha:

Internet will more and more allow people to work to companies on other countries or continents. It will also create a new way for all our social behavior, we will have web shows and maybe web pubs. The large bandwidth will help us connecting everywhere and we will no longer need TV as we know. Every TV show will be a stream to be brought in different languages.

That's pretty much the Covid experience, isn't it? Remote working, Zoom quizzes, livestreaming, and endless Netflix. Perhaps by the end of this decade streaming services won't be geo-restricted and decent subtitles will be available to all?

It's fun to see how accurate people's guesses are. But making predictions is usually less about future gazing and more about understanding our current reality. It isn't about being right or wrong - it's about daring to dream of something brighter than today.