Why do people want to be "on the Internet?" One of the main reasons is simple freedom. The Internet is a rare example of a true, modern, functional anarchy. There is no "Internet Inc." There are no official censors, no bosses, no board of directors, no stockholders.

Today that paragraph, written in 1993, seems naive and ill-informed. There certainly are censors on the Internet. Look at China and Saudi Arabia. While there is no "Internet Inc." the Internet is most certainly a commercial entity with its associated "bosses," "boards of directors" and "stockholders." I am not just talking about the companies that exist because of the Internet - Google, Yahoo, America Online. There is hardly a business in America which is not somehow making money from the Internet. Banks cut costs by sending balance statements by e-mail. Retailers sell every imaginable product online. The dream of a free non-capitalist space on the Internet seems foolish.

Yet this is how people saw the Internet when it was born in 1991. It was going to change the world. Science fiction writer Bruce Sterling, who wrote the paragraph that began this post, wasn't the only person who saw the Internet as a utopian space where freedom would reign.

People thought that the Internet would change the world. Instead, the world changed in the Internet.

We live in a capitalistic and hirarchical world and for the most part the Internet is a reflection of that. It didn't bring freedom, either economic or politically. Rich people have better access to the Internet and create most of the Internet's content. The Internet also hasn't changed world politics. People who live in countries with limited civil liberties have limited freedoms online as well.

This doesn't have to be the case. The early theorists of the Internet weren't wrong when they dreamed that the Internet could change the world. It still can. One way is by collectively redefining the Internet, one web page at a time. That is what I am doing with Rayt. Redefining the Internet democratically is just one way reclaim the Internet that was. We can still create an Internet that will change. We just need to believe it is possible.