--- title: "My conflicted thoughts about the decentralized web (while taking the Census of Technical Communicators survey)" date: 2018-08-06 description: "About the Census Survey Advertising’s impact on the web’s original ideals A web without advertising is naive How other content..." canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/2018/08/06/conflicted-thoughts-on-decentralized-web-and-survey/ --- # My conflicted thoughts about the decentralized web (while taking the Census of Technical Communicators survey) > Seeing my name in the Census of Technical Communicators survey as a possible source for professional development made me think about the impact of blogs as a learning resource. Advertising encourages bloggers to create rapid-fire, lightweight content in order to increase page views and other attention on the advertised product or service. The proliferation of blog content turns the wheels of social media, creating micro-bursts of attention for companies. The negative impact, however, is that more traditional forms of learning, such as scholarly journal articles and books, take a hit. The web's architecture and monetization model around content is optimized for blog content, so unless other mediums can find a way to become more visible and engaging within the architecture of the web, they will continue their slide into invisibility (at least to mainstream users). **Listen here:** [![](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/apple_podcasts.png)](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id-rather-be-writing-podcast/id277365275) [![](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/watchonyoutubeblack.png)](https://www.youtube.com/@idratherbewriting) [![](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/spotify.png)](https://open.spotify.com/show/4HeOZfPGMMfViOhVS40QBD) ## About the Census Survey Researchers at Concordia University (including Saul Carliner) are conducting a “Census of Technical Communicators.” The survey takes a while to complete (20 min.), but it’s well worth the time, and I’m fascinated to see the upcoming results. You can take the survey here: [Census of Technical Communicators Survey](https://survey.concordia.ca/limesurvey/index.php/497757?lang=en). Some of the census questions will prompt some serious reflection. For example, these two questions: - As a technical writer, where do you feel the most pain or friction? - How do technical writers in your organization feel the most pain or friction? There’s also an entire section about resources you consult for professional development, including blogs. The survey names several blogs specifically, including the one you’re reading: ![](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/profblogsyouconsult.png) ## Advertising’s impact on the web’s original ideals I’m excited to see blogs listed as sources for professional development here, because in my view it celebrates the decentralization of the web. The very fact that I would be listed among other sources such as peer-reviewed journals, formal conferences, or other trade magazines for professional development suggests that the dynamics of the web have destabilized the hierarchy of information in interesting ways. Given that a [Decentralized Web Summit](https://decentralizedweb.net/) just ended (I didn’t attend but there are recordings), it’s worth making a few extra notes on decentralization. In a post summarizing highlights from the conference, *Computing* summarizes takeaways from two key speakers (the speakers were Mitchell Baker from the Mozilla Foundation and Brewster Kahle from the Internet Archive). *Computing* explains: > The ideology of the web’s early pioneers, according to Baker, was free software and open source. “Money was considered evil,” she said. So when companies came in to commercialize the internet, the original architects were unprepared. “Advertising is the internet’s original sin,” Kahle told the packed room. “Advertising is winner-take-all, and that’s how we’ve ended up with centralization and monopolies.” > > At the conference, attendees presented utopian visions of how the future of the internet could look. Civil, a new media startup, proposed crowd-supported journalism using cryptocurrency micro-payments. Mastodon, a decentralized and encrypted social network, was commonly referenced as an alternative to Twitter. As Facebook and Google continue to monopolize the digital advertising ecosystem – recent estimates say that the two companies control over 70% of digital advertising spending globally – the promise of a decentralized web, free from the shackles of advertiser demands is fun to imagine. ([Can We Decentralize the Web?](https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/08/04/164215/can-we-decentralize-the-web)) In other words, the web was founded on free software and open source, but advertising ruined the purity of these ideals. While web enthusiasts have traditionally celebrated decentralization, the recent political scene has caused many to question the value of decentralization. Given that external entities (e.g., Russia) can destabilize our sense of real news by injecting fake, polarizing news stories circulated through social media channels (e.g., Facebook), many have called out the downsides of a decentralized web. In a centralized web, presumably these fake stories would be filtered out by judicious editors.