Defending the Open Web Is Not Enough  🔗 **Source:** [Defending the Open Web Is Not Enough](https://joost.blog/defending-open-web-not-enough/) > [!note]+ Document Notes > ```markdown > > --- > tags: [open-web, wordpress, ai] > author: Joost de Valk > source: joost.blog > reference: [https://joost.blog/defending-open-web-not-enough/] > date created: > > --- > > # 🏷️ Title: Defending the open web is not enough > <!-- deep-read:sections start --> ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### 🔗 References - Include links cited in or relevant to the article. ## 📝 Summary - What happened: The author argues the economic open web is already collapsing as independent publishers flee to closed platforms under AI- and ad-driven pressures. - Why it matters: Without sustainable incentives and new infrastructure, indie publishing and open source risk further hollowing out. - Key stakeholders: Indie creators, publishers, WordPress ecosystem, hosting companies, search/AI firms, open web institutions. - Risks and tradeoffs: Paywalls, walled gardens, and AI scraping undermine openness; new payment and trust layers alter control and governance. - Bottom line: Defending legacy institutions is necessary but insufficient; we must build a new, economically sustainable, machine-legible, trustable open web. ## 📖 Main Content - The article distinguishes the *technical* open web (protocols, HTML, self-hosted sites) from the *economic* open web (ability to reach audiences and earn a living). The former still works; the latter is in “endgame.” - AI scrapers, ignored robots.txt, API shutdowns, and zero-click search collapse referral traffic. Publishers react rationally: paywalls, quitting, or moving to Substack/Spotify/YouTube. - Generic content becomes free via AI, destroying the value of SEO-style commodity pieces and accelerating the exodus from open publishing. - Big media firms with leverage (FT, News Corp, Reddit, etc.) secure AI licensing deals after already leaving the open web; indie sites without distribution are left behind. - Managed platforms further weaken ownership by controlling monetization and often selling training rights (e.g., WordPress.com/Tumblr content deals). - The WordPress ecosystem, a core pillar of the open web, is mired in lawsuits and internal politics instead of building trust infrastructure, machine-readable content, or competitive UX. - The “next” open web requires: - **Trust infrastructure:** cryptographic provenance, verifiable authorship, and content integrity signals. - **Machine-readable architecture:** clean semantic HTML, structured content models, typed data, and agent-friendly APIs (e.g., WebMCP, WordPress Abilities API). - **Competitive defaults:** performance, structured data, and good UX out of the box for open source tools. - Open source is framed as an incentive system; misaligned incentives let companies extract value without funding maintenance (FAIR is used as a case study). - The author calls for sustainable business models where beneficiaries—hosts, search engines, ad networks, AI firms—fund open infrastructure under neutral governance. - Emerging examples: x402 (HTTP-native payments so bots can pay) and Anthropic’s Project Glasswing (funding security in open source). - The piece concludes that anger at Big Tech is justified, but only building a better, sustainable open web will change the trajectory. ### 🗒️ Notes - Open web = content accessible without accounts/apps; defined by access, not software stack. - Open source ≠ open web; one is about tool control, the other about content access. - Technical layer (protocols, standards) is intact; economic layer (traffic, revenue) is failing. - AI scraping and ignored norms (robots.txt) push publishers toward authentication and paywalls. - Zero-traffic AI and search summaries undermine SEO-era discovery; AI commoditizes generic content. - Indie “expert” blogs and niche publishers have largely vanished or moved behind platforms/paywalls. - Distribution is the key asset: those with it secure AI deals; those without can’t rebuild audiences via search alone. - Managed platforms’ hidden bargain: in exchange for reach and tooling, they control monetization and training rights. - AI companies already treat the open web as depleted, pivoting to paid expert data pipelines. - WordPress, despite powering a large share of the web, is entangled in lawsuits instead of tackling AI-era challenges. - Institutions protecting the open web are distracted by governance fights and internal politics. - Requirements for a next-gen open web: - Provenance and trust: cryptographic signatures, first-publication proofs, and author identity. - Machine-readable content: semantic HTML, structured schemas, and agent-centric APIs. - High-quality defaults in open source: performance, structured data, UX as baseline, not add-ons. - Open source funding failures: companies benefit but underfund shared infrastructure (FAIR, hosting ecosystem). - WordPress lawsuit: real economic tension, but handled as personal/legal conflict instead of systemic/incentive redesign. - New models should tie revenue from hosts/search/ads/AI to the health of open infrastructure, under neutral governance. - x402: bots can pay via HTTP, making open publishing economically viable again. - Anthropic’s Glasswing: example of AI firms reinvesting into the open stack they rely on. - Call to action: keep supporting Archive/EFF/Wikipedia, but focus energy on building sustainable, governable, incentive-aligned open web systems. ## 📚 References - [Defending the open web is not enough (original article)](https://joost.blog/defending-open-web-not-enough/) - [Endgame for the Open Web – Anil Dash](https://anildash.com/2026/03/27/endgame-open-web/) - [x402: An open standard for internet-native payments](https://x402.org/) (if available) - [Linux Foundation](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/) - [Anthropic Project Glasswing](https://www.anthropic.com/news/project-glasswing) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - Paragraph A paraphrase: Big Tech’s AI, API, and platform moves have already undermined the economic basis of the open web, triggering a rational exodus of publishers toward closed ecosystems that can still pay them. - Paragraph B paraphrase: To revive independent publishing, we must design a new open web that embeds trust, machine-readability, and sustainable incentives from the start, funded by the companies that depend on it, under neutral governance. ## 📰 Newsletter The open web isn’t just under attack; it’s in endgame. Joost de Valk argues that while protocols and WordPress sites still exist, the economic model that sustained indie publishers has quietly collapsed under AI scraping, zero-click search, and platform lock-in. For WordPress builders, that’s a challenge and an opportunity: rethink defaults (performance, structured data, trust signals), explore emerging standards like WebMCP and x402, and push for governance that aligns hosting, AI, and open source incentives. If you care about independent sites thriving in an AI-first world, this is required reading—and a roadmap for what to build next. ## ✅ Action Items #### DevRel - Publish demos showing WordPress and other OSS CMSs with out-of-the-box structured content, provenance metadata, and performance budgets. - Design workshops on making content machine-readable (semantic HTML, schema, APIs) for plugin/theme developers. - Improve developer docs and quickstarts for integrating WebMCP, Abilities API, and payment standards like x402. - Run campaigns highlighting “own your URL” best practices and migration paths from closed platforms. - Host community roundtables on AI scraping, training rights, and open web economics; summarize takeaways for leadership. #### OSPO - Draft policies for how orgs contribute to and depend on open web infrastructure (e.g., FAIR-like projects). - Implement license and data-usage reviews focused on AI training rights and open content reuse. - Establish security processes for OSS dependencies critical to web publishing. - Maintain an SBOM of web-facing services and prioritize funding for high-impact open components. - Create consultation hours for teams considering moving content between open and closed platforms. - Explore MoUs with hosting and AI vendors linking revenue to contributions to open infrastructure. - Define KPIs for open web health (contributions, funding, adoption of trust/machine-readable standards). #### Community - Support maintainers with governance templates and funding pathways for provenance and structured-content tooling. - Create contributor onramps for performance, accessibility, and schema improvements in popular themes/plugins. - Encourage sponsors to back open standards (WebMCP, x402) with transparent, milestone-based funding. - Organize cross-project incident drills for content scraping, data leaks, and API deprecations. #### WordPress - Core: prioritize trust infrastructure (signatures, origin metadata), performance budgets, and native structured content. - Core Performance: build dashboards and profiles that reward fast-by-default themes and plugins. - Core AI: define policies around training rights, opt-outs, and agent access that respect site-owner control. - **Core Program Team:** coordinate cross-team work on machine-readable content, security, and economic sustainability. - Mobile: improve offline UX and integrate provenance/structured data from core. - Playground: create labs to test agent interactions with WordPress via Abilities API and WebMCP. - Community: bake open-web education into meetups and WordCamps, including AI and training-rights talks. - Training: develop courses on “Building for the Next Open Web” (trust, schema, performance, governance). - Marketing: frame WordPress as a pillar of the next open web, not just a CMS. - Support: track tickets around AI scraping, paywalls, and distribution to inform roadmap. - Design: promote patterns that expose structured data and provenance without overwhelming users. - Documentation: update DevHub/HelpHub with best practices for semantic HTML, schema, and agent-friendly APIs. - Photos/TV: ensure media platforms model open licenses, provenance, and rich metadata. - Polyglots: encourage consistent translation of structured data and trust-related UI. - Accessibility: align trust and structured-content features with WCAG; ensure new UI is accessible. - Meta: ensure .org infrastructure showcases best practices for machine-readable, trustworthy content. - CLI: add commands for enabling/configuring structured data, provenance, and performance defaults. - Hosting: partner with hosts to ship “open-web-optimized” default configs (perf, caching, HTTPS, schema). - Tide: include structured data and performance in quality scores; surface AI-scraping-related patterns. - Openverse: model good provenance and licenses for media; document policies clearly. - Themes: require performance and structured data support as part of review; offer mentoring. - Plugins: improve review for security and training-rights clarity; encourage payment/x402 integrations. #### The WPOCC - Programs: fund maintainers focused on trust infrastructure, machine-readable content, and governance. - Projects: run documentation and governance sprints to align on open web economic sustainability. - Funding experiments: pilot matched grants for open-web-critical plugins, with transparent reporting. ### FAIR - Technical independence: ensure metadata and provenance remain locally verifiable and portable across hosts. - Policies and covenants: require funding transparency and anti-capture clauses for open infrastructure projects. - Productized governance artifacts: publish reusable charters, scorecards, and operator agreements for open web initiatives. ## 🧪 Hypotheses - H1: Sites with strong provenance and structured data will maintain more search and agent referral traffic than similar sites without them. - H2: Implementing x402-style payment for bot access will measurably increase publisher willingness to keep content openly accessible. - H3: Open source CMSs that ship with competitive defaults (performance, schema, UX) will retain more indie publishers than those that rely on plugins. - H4: Neutral, foundation-based governance increases corporate funding and long-term stability for open web infrastructure. - H5: Explicit AI training-rights controls will attract more expert publishers back to open web platforms. ### 📊 Methodology - Compare traffic and engagement data between sites with/without provenance/structured data over time, controlling for content quality. - Run A/B tests where bots access one set of sites with payment and another without; measure publisher behavior (paywalls, openness). - Longitudinal adoption and retention study of indie publishers across different CMSs and hosting setups. - Case studies of foundation-governed vs single-vendor projects (e.g., FAIR vs proprietary alternatives) analyzing funding, contributor activity, and uptime. - Survey publishers about AI training-rights controls and willingness to remain open if compensated and respected. ### ❓ Questions - How can indie creators gain meaningful distribution without relying on centralized, closed platforms? - What minimum provenance and machine-readable features should every open web CMS offer by default? - How can payment standards like x402 be made simple enough for small publishers yet robust for large platforms? - What governance structures prevent single-vendor capture while still enabling decisive action? - How should open projects negotiate AI training deals without undermining openness? ### 🔮 Future Research - Economic modeling of open content monetized via automated agent payments. - UX research on publisher understanding of training rights, licenses, and provenance. - Technical exploration of scalable cryptographic provenance for billions of web documents. - Governance experiments comparing different foundation models across language and region. - Impact analysis of AI summarization on long-tail indie traffic vs large publishers. ### 💡 Implications - Practice: Web developers must treat structured data, provenance, and performance as first-class requirements. - Policy: Regulators may need to clarify scraping, training rights, and payment norms for automated access. - Security: Provenance infrastructure doubles as integrity and anti-tampering tooling. - Education: Training for developers and publishers should cover economic incentives, not just technology. - Funding: Companies profiting from open content and open source should be expected to co-fund shared infrastructure. ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment - Reading level estimate: Around late high school / early college (Flesch–Kincaid approx. 11–13), due to long sentences and domain-specific vocabulary. #### 👀 Visual learners - Present: Conceptual contrasts (open vs closed, technical vs economic), but mostly text. - Improve: Add diagrams of content flows, incentive structures, and architecture of trust/machine-readable layers. #### 🔊 Aural learners - Present: None explicitly. - Improve: Offer a short audio summary or podcast-style discussion of the article’s core ideas. #### 🗣️ Verbal learners - Present: Clear definitions (open web vs open source) and concrete examples. - Improve: Add more analogies and mini case studies (e.g., a single indie publisher journey). #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners - Present: Implicit “what to build next” suggestions. - Improve: Provide hands-on checklists and small experiments (e.g., “add schema to one post and measure impact”). #### 🧠 Logical learners - Present: Causal chains (AI → traffic collapse → paywalls) and incentive analyses. - Improve: Explicit decision trees and tables comparing open vs closed models and governance options. #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners - Present: Discussion of community and institutional dynamics. - Improve: Add prompts for group debates and community workshops. #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners - Present: Essay format suited to quiet reflection. - Improve: Include reflection questions at the end (e.g., “Where do I publish and why?”). #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners - Present: Indirectly, via ecosystem metaphors (collapse, exodus). - Improve: Make the ecosystem analogy explicit: open web as habitat, with resilience and biodiversity parallels. ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment #### Screen reader semantics - Present: Standard blog layout likely with headings, but specifics unknown. - Improve: Ensure proper heading hierarchy, landmarks, and descriptive alt text for illustrations. #### Keyboard navigation - Present: Typical blog theme should support basic tabbing. - Improve: Verify no traps, add skip links, and maintain logical tab order. #### Contrast and readability - Present: Likely adequate, but theme-dependent. - Improve: Confirm 4.5:1 contrast, adequate line spacing, and scalable fonts. #### Text resizing and reflow - Present: Responsive design is likely. - Improve: Test at 200% zoom, ensure no clipping, and support prefers-reduced-motion for animations. #### Media and captions - Present: Primarily text with illustration; no media-heavy elements. - Improve: Add alt text and descriptions; if any video/audio is added, include captions/transcripts. #### Forms and interactions - Present: Possibly comment forms. - Improve: Ensure labeled fields, clear errors, adequate target sizes, and accessible notifications. #### Standards reference - Map improvements to WCAG 2.2 AA (e.g., 1.4.3 contrast, 2.1.1 keyboard, 2.4.1 bypass blocks, 2.4.7 focus visible). ### 🌍 DEIB Assessment #### Cultural breadth - Present: Focuses on largely Western/Global North platforms and institutions. - Improve: Include examples from other regions and languages, and how open web collapse affects them. #### Inclusive language - Present: Generally neutral, technical language. - Improve: Add plain-language summaries and glossaries for non-specialist readers. #### Neurodiversity support - Present: Clear structure, but long paragraphs. - Improve: Further chunk content, use consistent headings, and highlight key points in lists. #### Representation - Present: Centers specific companies and a few named individuals. - Improve: Highlight a broader range of indie creators and communities. #### Psychological safety - Present: Critical but not abusive tone; no direct targeting of individuals besides public figures. - Improve: Add content warnings only if future additions include sensitive topics (e.g., harassment case studies). ### ✅ Logical Validity #### Strong reasoning - Uses causal chains: AI scraping → traffic/revenue decline → rational move to paywalls/platforms. - Compares technical and economic layers of openness, clarifying confusion between open web and open source. - Identifies misaligned incentives as root causes rather than moralizing about individual bad actors. #### Fallacies - Some claims risk overgeneralization (e.g., “indie web is mostly already gone”) without precise data; could be framed as trends with caveats. - Fix: Add more explicit evidence or acknowledge exceptions and regional differences. #### Tone of voice - Tone: Urgent, analytical, and slightly polemical. Mix of diagnosis (“structural collapse”) and constructive proposals (“here’s what that takes”). ### 🛡️ DARVO Analysis - Deny: The article does not deny harms; it foregrounds them and reframes the problem. - Attack: Critiques institutions and leaders (e.g., lawsuits, distractions) but focuses on structural issues rather than personal attacks. - Reverse victim/offender: Does not portray Big Tech as victims; instead shows how they profit from an ecosystem they helped hollow out. Indie publishers are depicted as harmed parties responding rationally. - Overall: The rhetoric centers on systems and incentives, not DARVO-like deflection. ## 🎯 Conclusion The piece argues that the open web’s economic foundations are already in collapse, especially for indie publishers, and that defending legacy institutions alone cannot reverse this. A viable future demands new trust infrastructure, machine-readable content, competitive open-source defaults, and incentive-aligned funding from the companies that depend on openness. For readers, the next steps are to build and support tools, standards, and governance models that make openness sustainable rather than nostalgic. ## 🧱 Refactor Appendix (append after 🎯 Conclusion) ### 📚 Literature Split Pad - Purpose: Stage Konik CEE units that become per-source Literature notes. - Split level: **H3**. - Include verbatim quotes under 25 words and a [view highlight] link. ### [H1] Open web’s economic layer is collapsing > [!quote] [Defending the open web is not enough](https://joost.blog/defending-open-web-not-enough/) by [[Joost de Valk]] via [[joost.blog]]. Published 2026-04-07. > “What’s collapsing is the economic open web: the idea that you can publish independently, reach an audience, and build a sustainable business on open standards.” Two lines: context and use. Cite data if relevant. [view highlight](https://joost.blog/defending-open-web-not-enough/#H1) #xref #articleseed ID:rw_[MISSING] ### [H2] Next open web needs trust and incentives > [!quote] [Defending the open web is not enough](https://joost.blog/defending-open-web-not-enough/) > “The next open web needs business models that make openness economically sustainable from day one.” Two lines: context and use. [view highlight](https://joost.blog/defending-open-web-not-enough/#H2) #xref ID:rw_[MISSING] --- ### 🔖 Atomic Split Pad (Zettel Candidates) - Purpose: Promote reusable claims into Atomic notes. - Split level: **H4**. - Each item: one idea, present tense, specific, testable. #### [Z1] Open web’s economic layer collapses under AI - Scope/condition in one line. - Pointer to page/time or dataset. - Links: [[Open-Web]] [[AI-Incentives]] #### [Z2] Sustainable openness requires aligned funding models - Scope/condition in one line. - Pointer to page/time or dataset. - Links: [[Open-Source-Economics]] [[Governance]] --- ### ✏️ Fleeting Queue (Extract by Selection) - Purpose: Capture quick actions or sparks for Fleeting notes. - Extraction: **Select one line** → “Refactor: Extract selection to new note (content only).” - Keep each line short and self-contained. - [F1] Map my own sites against trust, machine-readable, and default criteria—https://joost.blog/defending-open-web-not-enough/ #fleeting #inbox - [F2] Research x402 adoption and how to prototype bot payments on a test site—https://joost.blog/defending-open-web-not-enough/ #fleeting #inbox - [F3] Draft a WordPress meetup talk on “Building for the Next Open Web”—https://joost.blog/defending-open-web-not-enough/ #fleeting #inbox --- <!-- deep-read:sections end --> 📄 **Full text:** ![[Full Document Contents/Articles/Defending the Open Web Is Not Enough|Defending the Open Web Is Not Enough, Joost de Valk]] ## Highlights - Anil Dash recently published [Endgame for the Open Web](https://anildash.com/2026/03/27/endgame-open-web/), and it’s a piece worth reading. His argument: Big Tech is systematically dismantling the open web through AI scraping, API lockdowns, and the erosion of open source norms. His prescription: defend the institutions. Support the Internet Archive, donate to the EFF, volunteer for Wikipedia. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knwwj66ytk9hhx36wp1x04wj)) - Tags: 👻 ai highlighted - The two get conflated because for a long time they went hand in hand. If you wanted to really own your content and infrastructure on the open web, self-hosting open source software was the path of least resistance. Open source was how you made the open web yours. But that’s a historical pairing, not a definition, and it’s worth keeping the concepts separate when what’s happening to one isn’t what’s happening to the other. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knwwj6719q9hhzsv1e510afa)) - Tags: 👻 ai highlighted - Everything above is about *how* to build the next open web. But trust infrastructure, machine-readable content, and competitive defaults all assume something that hasn’t been true for a while: that openness can sustain itself. It can’t, not on its own. And this is the one thing the open web and open source have in common: neither of them works if the economics don’t. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knwwj67wyxjs7tx8xv8c768j)) - Tags: 👻 ai highlighted