People occasionally ask me why I work on the web for a living, and why I’m so passionate about it. Here’s what I tell them.
In short, the web is magic. You write some simple code in an inexpensive text editor, and when it’s ready (or not) you upload those bits to a server somewhere. You probably don’t even know where your server is, but it doesn’t matter. In that instant, anyone, anywhere in the world can type a tiny address into their web browser and instantly view a perfect reproduction of your work. Provided the server can handle the capacity, even millions of people could view your site at once.
The geographical distances or the limited materials that used to restrict an idea no longer apply. And it gets better: you’re not a special case here. Anyone who can afford a computer has the power to do this. There has been no better time in history to be creative.
Now, expedited by an economic recession, we’re seeing the effects of this sudden leap forward. Multi-billion dollar industries who were doing just fine even a decade ago have had the rug pulled out from under their feet. It’s easy to pop some popcorn and get a little schadenfreude out of watching these lumbering dinosaurs fall, but either way, when the dust settles, we’ll be in a much better place. Now we’re in the interesting part, where we figure out how to get there.
So it’s easy to see why I’m utterly fascinated with the web. I’m no history buff, but it’s probably the most significant human advancement since the printing press. I want to be involved, to watch the web grow, and hopefully, to help make it even better.