Deurbanising the Web [pdf]
* PDFs are files. We must not lose sight of the fact that files are a basic freedom.<p>This seems like the core belief of the article.  And it's at odds with the nature of the web.<p>In the beginning, the web was a network of devices transmitting files with addressable locations on the device, creating a more or less 1:1 relationship between the devices and the web - the devices WERE the web.<p>But this inevitably faded as information wants to be... fast and it became easier to whip small data packets around describing state, not files.<p>I agree with the Unixy belief - files are freedom.  But trying to model the entire web on those files is fighting gravity.  They're not going anywhere.  They just have to travel through the Web Soup sometimes now.<p>All the technologies enabling a global network of file sharing are still there, the author is just bemoaning today's lingua franca.  (json?)  And perhaps there is a fear that we will lose sight of "device-based computing" / file ownership.<p>It has political overtones too... individualism vs collectivism.  The web is a very interesting place to hash through those ideas in code before we hash through them in legislation.