So, I just finished reading "This is for Everyone" by Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

I was 2/3 done by Christmas and was thinking of speed reading it in next 3-4 days. Then I found an interesting essay which prompted me to keep going slow.

I wrote following in the review section of the book on Good Reads.

"This Is for Everyone" is a biography of the web, written by its inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. In his autobiography, Berners-Lee gives us a view of the web from its birth to its current form.

If you are interested in technology, the history of technology, or the sociology of technology, this book has something for you. Technical minds will appreciate how he describes the process of inventing the web, which, in hindsight, appears simple and elegant.

It is interesting to note how different protocols were competing to become the universal standard, and why and how the web won; it had a lot to do with being egalitarian and keeping a greater purpose in mind instead of profiteering.

Those who reminisce about the "good old web", a time when social websites were a delight to use and not just personalized, real-time broadcast platforms designed to keep you glued to the screen, will see a ray of hope in what is currently being done by a few believers to restore sanity to the web.

As the traditional web is increasingly accessed through AI agents rather than traditional surfing, the nature of the web is undergoing another transformation. Tim is an evangelist of a new paradigm that would nudge and facilitate AI to work for us, enabling us to act according to our "intention" rather than sucking our "attention" to dupe us.

The book is easy to read. Reading a firsthand account from such a great person was a delight.

~Anurag