Why We All Need to Make the Internet Fun Again

[Commentary] The latest Internet boom has brought us a wide range of services, but variety is remarkably absent from a key category: The Internet itself. Some 20 years after its launch, the consumer Internet has reached a creativity plateau, with the same websites now being created by the thousands from the same content-management systems every day. At the same time, Facebook and other social networks have forced us into what I call “templated selves” -- standardized units of user identity and user-generated content, confining free expression into a limited set of prefabricated molds. And mobile app stores, once the promised platform for new businesses drawn from new ideas, are drowning in largely homogeneous content, with the barrier to discovering truly unique apps now raised so high, few can effectively compete. In a word, the Internet has become boring.

When it went mass market in the mid-’90s, the Web was promised as a place of open exploration and creativity. Now, instead, it restricts our activity at nearly every turn. This doesn’t just constrain us as people, but threatens to impede the very inventiveness that the Internet industry depends on to continue thriving. What’s needed now is an understanding of how we reached this point -- and an alternative vision for the Internet’s next generation.

[Amber Case is an entrepreneur and former co-founder and CEO of Geoloqi]