What does it mean to be at the receiving end of a web page?What does it mean to be at the receiving end of a web page?
Normally it means you’re in my hands, I (the web master) call the shots and decide what links you (the web surfer) get to click, accessing a printer-friendly format, the size of this text, shit like that.
That’s not the web I want. That’s not how humans relate to each other. We’re equals and the web should reflect that. You should be in charge of documents that interest you. You should have the right to all documents just like me and I shouldn’t be able to decide what you can or can’t do with a document.
When you publish a document here you give rights to those at the receiving end. People are free to read or listen, share and remix any document. We’re all in charge. We all have the right to use this information freely.
If you’re like me and believe we’ll all be better off with a common web where we share and build on each others efforts, go ahead and take this document and make something beautiful. Or take all the documents published here and make them better!
Photo: By Cpl Jody Lee Smith [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.