Transcript
Steve:
Well, hello, Robert Bergeon, how are you?
Robin:
I'm good, how are you? It's good to see you.
Steve:
Yeah, I can, yeah. Well, as we're chatting off camera, we haven't, well, you say that we've met in the intervening years between HTML5 and when that was released, but that was the last time I remember.
Robin:
Yeah, I mean, you might be right, you might be right.
Steve:
Yeah, I mean, you just, you know, I mean, we were at the point where we needed to fight for HTML5 and you just fucked off. So, you lived your life, I don't blame you. And I don't think it was a wrong move either.
I think that the way it's worked out with HTML, it's fine by me.
Robin:
Yeah, and you know, the fight never ends, right? And you might move on from one and then just like fall into the next one, right?
Steve:
Yeah, and by the look of what I've seen or sound of it, I see your output on social media and I've read some of your articles and it sounds like you're in a much more interesting space than, well, a different space, put it that way.
Robin:
Different, yeah, different.
Steve:
Definitely different. Now, so after HTML5 was published, what happened then for you? Because I know you went over to the States.
Robin:
Yeah, I mean, so like after we shipped 5.0, I stuck around a bit at W3C for, I forget, a year-ish.
Steve:
You weren't actually working there though, were you?
Robin:
Yeah, yeah, I was.
Steve:
Oh, I didn't realize you were a worker.
Robin:
When I was working on HTML5, I was in the employee of, I mean, like as a contractor, but like in the employee of W3C, officially representing, you know, no one like just like working for the common good of the group, as it were. I forget, like, you know, I'm getting old, and my memory is not as good as it used to be, but I think we shipped something in November, and I stayed with W3C until the end of July the following year.
Steve:
Oh, okay.
Robin:
And most of that work was around lots of infrastructure work, lots of like working on the test suites, you know, web platform tests, like we really doubled down on that for a while. And yeah, like, you know, all the spec publishing tools that we'd been working on for a while, productizing them and making them work better. So, there was quite a fair amount of like, basically, like technical work.
And then I...
Steve:
Weren't you working on the Ruby spec as well?
Robin:
I worked on the Ruby spec, but that was folded into HTML5, and then later it was pulled out again. I mean, like, the Ruby feature is probably like the most like, you know, like, like, I don't know. I don't even know where it is now, but that thing was a promise.
It was a promise for like 20 years that was basically never delivered on. And Japanese people just have to live without, you know, Ruby, I guess, which really sucks.
Steve:
Well, that's unfortunate.
Robin:
Yeah, it is unfortunate. But yeah, no, after that, I went, I spent, just like to make it short, like, I spent two years at a startup in New York, working on trying to make scholarly publication, publishing less bad, you know, but basically, like, move out of the world of like four or five monopolies, oligopoly, just pushing out PDFs to people and charging crazy amounts. It didn't really work out, even though we did build some cool stuff.
Then spent five years at the New York Times, mostly working on privacy and protecting the media from the platforms. Then I went to Protocol Labs to do some more tech work on decentralized protocols, in general, lots of IPFS work. And now as of two years ago, I'm back in Europe, I live in Brussels now.
And I run my own small business, mostly working on, you know, how to bring democracy to the internet.
Steve:
So most of your work is funded by?
Robin:
It's a mix. It's a mix. So I work for, in part for the IPFS Foundation.
And the primary, I mean, I do a bunch of stuff for them, because, like, there's lots of interesting things happening in sort of like a new generation of decentralized protocols. But like a lot of what I work on for the IPFS Foundation is a set of small specs called Dazzle. I think you'd like it because it's all stupid puns.
So like the specs are called Dazzle, the website is dazzle.ing, so it's dazzling. And, you know, like there's a version of Dazzle for like big data. So it's big Dazzle, so it's bedazzle.
The, you know, the metadata.
Steve:
But what does it actually do?
Robin:
Let me run with the jokes a bit. Sorry. There's drizzle, there's like, there's mazzle.
I mean, like, but like what it does is essentially.
Steve:
Do you have Jizzle yet?
Robin:
Not yet, but we could work on it.
We, basically, it's a set of primitives for content addressed systems. So systems where you find content based on some kind of hash of the content itself, which is something that's very useful for all kinds of decentralized systems. And it's particularly useful if you wanted to, if you want to do things that are broadly known as self-certifying data structures.
And so self-certifying data structures for people who are less familiar with it is basically data where like, if you get the data, it doesn't matter if you get it from me or if you get it from someone else indirectly through some untrustworthy channel, you can still know it from me. Because it's in a canonical format, you have the hash of the thing, it's signed. And so, basically, you have all the proof.
And this is very useful as a building block for other protocols. And so, for instance, one of the primary use cases for Dazzle is, it's actually the core building blocks of the 80 proto protocols. So they had the atmosphere that powers blue sky and all these things.
Steve:
Yeah, I was going to ask you, because I did see you went to Atmosphere, the conference, and I had no idea what Atmosphere was and no idea what the conference was about, but it looked interesting. And it pricked my ears up in regards to it, because I saw it. And then of late, I had moved from B-Sky to EuroSky.
And now I...
Robin:
Excellent choice.
Steve:
Yeah. And I've just started using mu.com as a...
Robin:
Dot social. Yeah, mu.
Steve:
Yeah, mu. Yeah. Mu as a client, because I like using the web client anyway.
So, I don't know. Is there an app?
Robin:
There's no app. There will be an app. There will be an app this summer.
But like right now, yeah, it's only web.
Steve:
That's fine. I've always used the web, unless like LinkedIn is just really getting on my, tugging at my cojones, so to speak, because it just forces you and tries to funnel you in through creating crappy interfaces into using, well, what could I describe as a less crappy interface? But they do it on purpose.
They put up these, you know, dialogues and banners and things that just basically say, please, you know, go, not even please, they just force you to use the app. I don't like that. So, I'm perfectly happy to continue to use the web apps.
Now, one thing I wanted to know, it's great to see these European initiatives occurring. What is the funding model for something like Mu and EuroSky? Because I don't want it to go away.
Robin:
Yeah, well, the plan is not for them to go away, right? So, there's multiple things, right? It's sort of like a spectrum kind of situation.
Ultimately, the goal is for all of these systems to be self-sustaining. And really, we want to transition the social media space, but more broadly, the rest of the internet. But let's start with, you know, just social media to a model that I would say is more economically sensible and more democratic.
The idea being, like, if you look at how all these massive companies currently do it, all the incumbents, they own the stack vertically, right? It's like, they own all the infrastructure, all the way up to the consumer product. And anyone who wants to compete is supposed to do the same thing, own identity, own privacy, own advertising, own et cetera, which is, of course, impossible.
And so, you have this incumbent model that's essentially build a motor on something and then charge rent, and then certify, and certify, and certify. What we want to do is to split that up, where you have a shared infrastructure that a whole bunch of different apps can use, competitors amongst them, and then much smaller, you know, social apps that are all interoperable, but that you can, you know, build and operate with one, two, five, maybe 15 people, depends on what you're doing exactly, but that can keep it small, precisely because you don't have to worry about the infrastructure, and precisely because a lot of the value is shared. This is a model that's typical, you know, in other sectors of industry, you know, the more mature ones that are not like tech doing things in kind of a shitty way. And so, you know, increasingly, I mean, in Europe, at least, rail is owned by an entity that only does rail.
It's often like public, semi-public, and then you can have competing services on top. Same thing with like broadband access, you're going to have like fiber, you only lay one fiber, you make it high quality, you have like some kind of shared model, and then you have competing offerings on top. So, we want to bring that model to the internet.
It's a long-winded way of getting back to your initial question, but the idea is EuroSky, the social media infrastructure system, is not intended to be highly profitable. It's basically just intended to meet costs plus a little bit for like rainy days or whatever you want to think about. So, it's an infrastructure provider, it's meant to be commodified, and the idea is to like build up...
Steve:
So, it's not run for profit, is it?
Robin:
It's not run for profit. So, all of these systems are currently owned by a non-profit, and so the idea of EuroSky is really like eventually it's going to turn into probably some kind of for-profit entity, but for-profit with whatever moderation thing so that it doesn't become like raging for profit. So, probably like cooperative governance, stewardship model, something like that, where the idea is that it should be able to charge for its services, but not become something that will capture the ecosystem because infrastructure captures, right?
So, that's EuroSky. Mu, for instance, could turn into like a for-profit thing because the idea is that it's an example of one of those small things top, right? And in fact, we currently started a stream of research into new business models that work for this new universe that we want to build.
So, we're working with researchers who specialize in like new economics, new business models, etc. And I think one of the things that I'd love to see happen with Mu is sort of start experimenting with these things, seeing where new ways of making money can happen.
Steve:
Well, hopefully, yeah. Hopefully, it's a model of subscription versus an advertiser model. I mean, I know subscription models aren't particularly popular, and I don't know how effective they are, but I mean, they do work with every bit of software now is bloody subscription model.
Yeah.
Robin:
Which is a bit of a problem, right? Because like you end up like it adds up to huge costs that not everyone can afford.
Steve:
Yeah.
Robin:
So, yeah. I mean, like I think we tend to go back to the same set of models. I think there are more interesting models that we just need to look for.
Like I saw, like I don't want to say too much because they haven't like released it yet, but like I saw a new type of advertising experience provided by a small company in Norway called Kobler. And it's actually nice. It's almost like it's well, first, it's privacy is fully like privacy respecting.
And second, they made it so like you basically want to see the ads, which is pretty cool.
Steve:
Well, yeah. I mean, a well done ad is worth seeing. It's just that, you know, with the experience that you would that is presented to users on the web currently is that some sites are just unusable because it's so much like, yeah, I think we'd like, for example, the independent newspaper.
I like the ipaper. I just hate the site. So I don't tend to, you know, I muted it in my timeline because I don't want because every time I go there, it just frustrates the hell out of me.
Robin:
Yeah.
Steve:
So, I mean, I'm a Guardian reader and I read the Guardian and I pay them small, you know, amount each month and therefore I don't see ads. I don't like that. I don't mind, you know, and with my Mastodon account, I pay a small amount each month just, you know, to keep for a server or whatever maintenance for them.
So, I mean, I don't think, especially if it's only a small amount that there's anything wrong with charging, but obviously free is better. And if you say there's advertising that won't take over the experience of the thing itself. I was reading in the Guardian today and it made me think because the headline essentially was Europeans talk about digital sovereignty, but they're using the same playbook as the tech giants of the US.
Any thoughts on that?
Robin:
I mean, that's Max Fontaine's opinion piece, which I think is...
Steve:
Oh, so you've seen it, yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Robin:
I've seen it. I know Max. And I think he's correct.
I think it's... we're basically in this situation where a lot of people didn't want to start thinking about European alternatives and the, you know, the current American government have made it and, you know, those tech monopolies that support it directly have made it impossible to ignore the problem. And so these people who have not been thinking about the issue for a very long time and now find themselves sort of like forced to look into it, the only frame of reference and the reason they weren't thinking about it before is the way that American companies operate.
And so they thought that was fine. They thought that was innovative and they thought it, you know, they basically were like, oh, that's how it's done. And so now they're, oh, we've got to do the same thing here, which is absolutely useless as a perspective, right?
Max is completely right in his analysis there, because like having a European Google would be just as catastrophic as having the Google we have today, right? It's bad for the web. It's bad for people.
None of these companies should exist. And so that's why we're really looking at this idea of like different business models and different approaches to structuring the market. And I really want to have like an approach there that's thinking in terms of market structure, you know, a lot of like what I consider like my people, like I think your people as well, right, have been way too naive about this over the past 30 years.
It's just like, oh, we'll make it open source and, you know, everything will work out, right? And then, well, you know, the bad guys get money, you don't get money, you get fucked over, right? Pretty straightforward.
And so yeah, thinking in terms of like business models, thinking in terms of market structure, so that we can have a different approach with a different vision and a different clear idea of how the tech ecosystem, how the digital space should work, I think is the way forward. And it's clearly what's missing in those spaces right now.
Steve:
Yeah. I mean, it's definitely worth giving it a try because obviously what we have, yeah, at the moment is not the best. And as you say, I mean, the political scene and the way that politics, technology, whatever is being used to undermine European, not just Europeans, but we're talking about Europe, currently it's just, I just find it beyond belief, to be honest.
I mean, I just, I don't know how we have come to this point or how America has come to this point, because I'm definitely not there. But one of the other things I saw was, as you may know, I'm part owner of a small business in the UK, we do accessibility consulting, a thriving small business to be exact.
Robin:
That's excellent to hear.
Steve:
Yeah. No, no, it's going well. We've got about 17 people working with us.
And one of the things is that we use Google infrastructure and Microsoft, Word, etc. And then I saw recently that there was this initiative for a European suite of office tools too. Can you tell me anything you know about that?
Robin:
I mean, yeah, there's several that are interesting. Like in France, there's something called La Suite. In Germany, it's called OpenDesk, if memory serves.
And they're kind of like different, but they're also trying to figure out how they could, how they interoperate and like, how maybe share a backend storage and that kind of stuff. It's still a little bit new, but I find that what they've produced can sometimes be significantly better than the traditional alternatives. If you think in terms of like a liberal office, they're much more usable and pretty, you know, snappy and quick.
And so I definitely think there's promise in this space. I also think, to be honest, if there is a space that's really ripe for reinvention, it's office software. You know, for a talk I gave last week, actually, I was looking at screenshots of office software from 30 years ago.
Apart from the fact that, you know, the buttons are flat instead of raised and like the gray of the UX is not quite the same shade of gray as it is today. They're exactly the fucking same thing. And so I do think there's ways of using, of reinventing this software.
So I think those suites are interesting and they're going to have some success. The French government already uses the Zoom equivalent called Visio extensively, and I've used it a lot, like in a lot of meetings I've had, it's extremely smooth, like zero complaints, literally zero complaints. It's not finicky, you click the link, it opens up, you see people in the video.
I don't know how to say it, it just works, right?
Steve:
I'll have to check that out. I mean, yeah. I mean, what we want to be able to do is just use more, you know, is use more products for our office processes that are GDPR compliant, are based in the EU, have the service based in the EU and things like that.
And some of the stuff we do already have content, you know, our files or whatever saved in EU service because GDPR. But yeah, I just love the idea of being able to get away from that, because I was also reading today about someone, because they got banned by the US government, and then all of their credit cards and everything. I mean, the whole, it just seems, yeah, just seems like ransomware.
Robin:
This is OFAC sanctioning. So initially, it was used, you know, to target, you know, drug cartels, terrorist organizations, the idea being that the US Treasury sanctions you in such a way that not only is it that US companies can no longer work with you, but like any company that wants access to American markets, notably American financial markets, can also no longer work with you. And so they'd say it includes the euro dollar and all these systems.
And they found out, they sort of stumbled into the power of this thing. Because initially, you know, they would like really, again, like, initially, it was it was invented to target, you know, like, yeah, sure, like, you're a major drug trafficker. And you know, you're stashing away 10s of millions somewhere.
Well, we're going to sanction you. So that's it. But like, they noticed it was extremely effective, because everything's interconnected, to the point where I forget who it was, but at some point, they sanctioned a Chinese person.
And even in China, they could not get banked. Because all the Chinese banks want to have access to the international market. And therefore, therefore didn't work.
And so what happened more recently, I think it was a year and a half ago, is when the International Criminal Court started looking into genocide in Palestine. They, they, you know, the judges, you know, started working on the case as they normally would. It's their job.
But the US objected to that and sanctioned the judges. And they immediately lost access to all their email, because it was Microsoft. But also because it's individual.
Yeah, the credit cards is Visa MasterCard to American companies. So no, no credit card anymore. Of course, like no Netflix, no Amazon, no booking.com.
All of these things stopped working.
Steve:
This is because you were saying that these were were judges who were working on something.
Robin:
Yep, they were they were working on the on the on the on the on the genocide in Palestine. So that that was that that that was all they did. And it's literally their job.
And they're still sanctioned. And so it's, it's tricky, because like, a lot of things depend on these, you know, pieces of infrastructure we take for granted. I mean, like, your operating system is probably set up unless you have Linux, it's probably set up to have dependencies on either Google or Microsoft or app, right?
Yeah, look at phones and laptops, that's it. So those things stop working, like the App Store, the Play Store, none of that works. So yeah, I mean, the judge you who's the French one who's been quite outspoken about it.
He's very, very interesting guy. So this is basically like being sent back to the 90s. You know, nothing technological work.
I mean, he's since like, you know, switched over to like, you know, whatever Linux, I don't I don't know what else like, you know, using alternatives and all that. But like, the moment the hammer comes down, it's extremely, extremely disruptive, extremely brutal. And people just don't realize how much of your life depends on that.
And also, just just to make things just to compound things. Any person who helps you can be sanctioned as well. So usually, if they're not Americans, it's okay, it doesn't, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't get too bad for them, like most of the time.
But if an American helps you, they're looking at I think he was saying 25 years. And helping you can just like be like, you know, if they if they go to the supermarket to get to, you know, buy a pack of beer. So you have to like tell your American friends, like, no, like, I'll help me.
It's extremely disruptive and very, very powerful instrument.
Steve:
Yeah. And it sounds like it's being weaponized to to, you know, to undermine or to suppress political dissent.
Robin:
There's a book about that, which happens to be right here, because I was consulting it for something else, which is called Underground Empire by Farrell and Nguyen. Highly recommend it. They call it weaponized interdependence.
Steve:
Yeah. So talking of books, you've written a book, is that or is that just me?
Robin:
Hey, I'm right. I'm in the process of writing a book. It doesn't have a it doesn't have a date yet.
Steve:
And what's it about?
Robin:
I mean, it's gonna rock and like, you know, everyone, everyone, you should like already.
Steve:
Oh, of course, you could have a picture of me, you know, then obviously, yeah.
Robin:
It's the working title is called Regime Change. And the the the premise is is simple, explains that the entire digital space or close to the entire digital space is currently under the private government of a small number of companies. And I explained the notion of private government.
It's a notion that that pre exists and is already used. And I, you know, that the book is very solution focused. So I spent just one chapter explaining what that's problem.
And then I talk about solutions that exist. So how can we think about power on the internet? Where does that power for private government come from, comes from infrastructure?
So we need to build infrastructure. And then, you know, talk about like, what are computers for? How do we mobilize them to change this?
How do we change everything from, you know, search to advertising, to the information environment, social media, etc, etc. Yep. So I mean, like, I should spend more time writing it probably, but like, Yeah, well, I'm sure that you'll get to it eventually.
Steve:
It's interesting, because that term regime change, which I actually used that term in a post the other day, because I was just talking to someone who, a friend who I met for coffee, and he wanted to, he was talking about going over to the States. And I said, I won't go to the US until there is regime change. And but then I pointed to, I did this article about the correct way to identify fascists using ARIA attributes, and the incorrect way.
And obviously, it was a, you know, picture of Trump. And what, yeah, it just made me realize that there is a good reason why, you know, because even though I am white male, blah, blah, blah, I still fear the, you know, getting stuck in the American penal system or the custom system or whatever.
Robin:
Yeah, 100%.
Steve:
I mean, I mean, and also, it's a fucking ugly place to go. You know, at this point in time, there's just so much. Yeah.
I mean, do you still travel to the States?
Robin:
Not at all. Not at all. I have not been to the States since Trump got elected, and I don't plan to.
I've already been in some degree of moderate trouble with the American immigration.
Steve:
Really?
Robin:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, at the best of times, they can already be like, quite, let's say, finicky, as a nice word for it. And so I'm definitely not going to roll that dice.
Steve:
Yeah, I just don't think it's worth, like, there's this conference that happens every year called CSUN. I've been there many times. I love going.
I didn't go this year because, yeah, I just didn't feel it was a good idea.
Robin:
And I mean, like, you know, the odds are you probably wouldn't get picked up, but you do work in accessibility, and accessibility is, like, completely against what they do.
Steve:
Yeah, exactly.
Robin:
It's a bunch of, like, eugenics-happy, you know, fascists. They're not going to like you.
Steve:
No. Well, no. I mean, you know, all they need to do is look at my social media timeline, and they'll probably have me in a, you know, dark cell somewhere.
But this atmosphere conference that you were at, that was in Canada?
Robin:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Last year, it was in Seattle, and they moved it to Vancouver so that more people could come because they knew that a lot of their audience simply would not travel to the US.
Steve:
Yeah. No, it's understandable. I mean, I traditionally also, well, whenever I can, I go to a conference in Toronto called AccessibilityTO.
I really enjoy the accessibility conference, obviously. But I really enjoy going there. So, I'm going to go there instead of going, you know, on a business trip to CSUN.
And of course, TPAC is in Dublin this year, so.
Robin:
Oh, I didn't know that. Well, that's easy enough.
Steve:
So, are you still involved with W3C at all?
Robin:
No, I don't. You know, there really isn't much that I have a reason to work on in the W3C space these days. The last stuff I did was mostly privacy focused, and I've been trying to wrap that up as much as possible.
Once every few months, I pop into the GPC work that the Privacy Working Group is doing, because I used to be an editor, and I was part of the initial group that started it. So, occasionally, it helps. But that's pretty much it.
I really think that the W3C has sort of failed to renew its scope. It's very much focused on, I mean, it's entirely focused on, you know, like browser engine features, and not at all on the rest of the web. And the rest of the web is much bigger, much more complex, and it's where most of the real problems are.
Steve:
So, you're saying that, I mean, they're not facilitating, not promoting the sort of work you're talking about?
Robin:
Yeah, and they're not interested too. Like, when I was on the board, I tried to push for it, and there was interest in the community. There was interest from the CEO who just left, who the board hired, and who just stepped down, Seth, who was excellent, sadly.
But, I mean, most of the community, you know, of, like, companies are disengaged from the main of W3C, because they're like, well, it's just like Google and Apple calling the shots anyway. So, you know, why show up? And there's, like, there's areas where it still makes sense.
So, accessibility is one. So, like, if you're...
Steve:
Yeah, I think that that's one of the success stories, team success stories.
Robin:
It is, but it's one of very, very few success stories, right? So, there's accessibility and, like, the accessibility...
Steve:
The CSS work?
Robin:
Sorry?
Steve:
The CSS work?
Robin:
Yeah, CSS is, but, you know, CSS is kind of, like, okay, now we have, like, a lot of features. You know, at some point, you know, do we really need, like, a seventh type of gradient, et cetera, et cetera? Like, you know, not to disrespect the work, because I think it was important to get it right, but what are you changing about the world that's critical when you improve CSS, right?
And I think not much. It's hard to see the relevance of major, you know, at least the major relevance of CSS work. Accessibility is still meaningful.
A lot of the semantic web stuff, like, you know, has very little adoption. And so, you look at the web and you're like, well, the funding model for the whole thing is broken. Social media is broken.
Search is broken. Like, there's a ton of stuff that's really broken out there. And W3C is just, like, oh, the web, you know, maybe that's someone else's problem.
I don't know. So, yeah, it doesn't feel like a personally, if it were up to me, I would move the accessibility community somewhere else. Because it feels risky to keep it in the dying organization.
And it's always better to move when you can decide to move rather than when you're, like, oh, shit, we need to move now. I think CSS can go to the working group at this point. It's fine.
Steve:
Yeah. It's interesting, because I was talking to Brian Kardell recently, and he was saying, well, he was ruminating about W3C and what WG, and he was saying that what WG needs is more members. But, yeah, the thing is, is that I think that they got their sweet spot where they like it, where it's basically the browsers, you know, rule everything.
I mean, they do take, you know, it has got better. They do take input on stuff. I mean, I think it's also, I mean, it's partially because the people that we or, you know, I was dealing with, you were dealing with, that were involved in the development were just out of their teens, some of them.
And I think they've grown up a bit. And so, it's just as I have. So, you know, a lot more sanguine and reasonable about things than I used to be.
But, and so are they. But, I mean, it's still, you know, one of the things about, I find about standards, they just take forever.
Robin:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there's, we should really be rethinking how we do standards on the web in general, like taking a step back and going like, okay, as you say, like, what working group used to have some really serious problems, I see those problems as having mostly been addressed. The balance of power isn't there, but like, it's very technical focused, like, and it's good to have a space that's like, it's focused on the tech, they're really just doing that one thing.
People like Anna Van Kesteren are now like very pleasant to work with. You know, when you want to bring something to them, the expectations are exacting, but they're the same for everyone. It's, you know, it's fair.
So, I would be fine with like taking, you know, all the web API stuff and the CSS stuff and just like moving it to the working group and saying, this is where the browser engine gets made, right? This is the core engine thing. Just leave it there.
Like people talking about like all those like extremely nerdy, highly specialized things together. They have a space. It's good.
The question is then, what do you do with the actual web? And so, on the website, I tend to put accessibility much more on the website because it touches so much on user interface and on the user side of things. And it's a lot less about like, you know, micro timings and like when this thread yields to what other thread, right?
And I don't feel that that's being served well by W3C and none of the, you know, but at least it's in there. Internationalization is like, it's still like, you know, they have like very good people, but it's like two people and, you know, no broad support. And then all the other things that are structural to the web are just not being addressed by anyone.
There's no group. And so, I think we need something. It's fine to have something that's very core, like web engines.
You do web engines, right? But like we need something for the broader picture that's much more about like, you know, governance, people, the more complex features that are less technical and much more human. We don't have that.
Steve:
So, I mean, there is some trying to defend the W3C now. Well, I just, I'm still, I'm still involved and I've been working with two guys from the Dutch government, one guy called Hidde De Vries and another called Jeroen Hulscher, and we've been working on this WCAG evaluation methodology.
Robin:
Uh-huh.
Steve:
Essentially, it's, it was a document note that was developed by Shadi and another guy, Eric Vellerman, in 2014. And if you look at the document, it looks like 2014. You know, and what we've essentially done, I mean, the bones were good, but also we've had this move towards WCAG being used in Europe and other countries to test more than websites, web apps.
You know, we're talking about native mobile apps, things like that. And I know this pushback from um, certain companies within the W3C that don't like that idea. Um, but, and so, and so when these, you know, things come up about sort of making WCAG less, more tech agnostic, you know, expanding the scope of it to fit into the reality of how it's being used, then we get, we get the pushback.
So, so anyway, what the, and that is a discussion that is continuing within the-
Robin:
You're not defending W3C very well.
Steve:
Well, I'm saying, well, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying that what we've done with the WCAG-EM is, is really meet that reality through the backdoor.
We talk about, you know, because a is not a normative document, but we talk about, you know, and we provide references and we, we point out that the WCAG is used for all these things. So this is how you, you know, this evaluation methodology that you can use for multiple things, which I think is an improvement, but also it looks better. And that matters.
It does. Well, I mean, it just, you know, trying to read something like it's just, it's like card, like chewing cardboard, you know, we tried to make it a bit more sort of, you know, make the, the important stuff stand out more, give it some nice graphics and just updating to the latest, you know, spec style is, is, is a help.
Robin:
Yeah. And, and, and also you gotta, you gotta support the people, you know, doing advocacy out there. You know, I can imagine some, you know, some kid in a company saying like, oh, we should use this to evaluate our stuff and then showing it to, to, to, to their boss.
Like, what the fuck is that thing?
Steve:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, the funny thing is, is that the WCAG-EM is used by the Dutch government as part of their methodology.
And these two guys, these, you know, they're the accessibility monitors or whatever they do. They're very, well, the reason why I mentioned Hiddie, because he talks a lot about sustainable, um, except what's sustainable, you know, web, um, and the sustainable accessibility as well. But he, you know, I think he's, he's worked on as part of a document that, that has been published recently on sustainable practices.
Also AI stuff, these interesting, cause there was a paper that came out from W3C again, you know, to whatever about the use of the ethical use of AI. Right. What, what is your take on AI and what, you know, is, is it redeemable as a, as a technology?
Robin:
Yeah, I mean, let me crack open a beer cause that's a lot. No, I think, I think we need to be careful to distinguish the technology from, from the products. Um, the technology itself is capable in for some users, um, and can, can, you know, has potential to actually do good and specifically to, you know, help liberate people from exactly the kind of, of, of folks who like are currently weaponizing it.
Steve:
Right.
Yeah.
Robin:
The problem is it's, it's, it's being shipped in an environment in which like the almost entirety of the digital sphere is captured by a small number of companies that are not very nice companies. Um, and that have like an entire playbook, um, you know, at hand to like capture markets, capture people, keep them locked in. Um, and, and essentially are really using that to like shift the, the, the future of AI and of the entirety of the digital space.
And so I, I want to distinguish the potential of LLMs from what those companies are doing. What those companies are doing is more of the same of what they've been doing for the past, you know, 15, 20 years. So like a lot of people who are like currently discovering that, um, being forced to search through it sucks.
Um, and that is destroying publishers hadn't realized that the destroying publishers side of things is something that Google has been doing, working constantly for that, for like, you know, easily 15 years, you know, moving stuff, what's information boxes, moving stuff to, to app, et cetera, basically decreasing the reasons you would have to click out of, uh, of their website. So this is just the continuation of an approach to business that has been persistent for, for a long time.
Steve:
So it's another tool for them to, yeah.
Robin:
And so a lot of people are mad at AI, but it's more because it's causing them to realize that those, the, the system in which AI exists is really problematic because it makes it, it makes it very visible. Right. Um, and yeah, they're forced to, to, to, to use features that suck, but that has been the case.
You know, you mentioned LinkedIn when, when, when we were talking earlier, that thing sucks, but you have to use it because it's where like all your professional contacts are. Um, and so that, you know, and, and, and if it were on an open protocol, someone would have created a LinkedIn that doesn't suck a long time ago. Um, but like right now we can't, and we have to put up with Microsoft's atrocious user experience, um, just because they are in the social network there.
Um, and so again, on one side, we have what is like a deeply problematic, um, set of practices that are being applied to this new technology. The technology is not neutral. It was produced with, you know, stolen content and a whole bunch of stuff.
And there's a whole bunch of issues, um, with like being ecocidal in the energy users it has. However, none of these things are necessary. Uh, it, it, it's, you know, it's, it's also a question of how we, how we apply the technology.
If we used everyone's content and we only used it to, um, you know, I don't know, cure cancer instead of using it to like compete with the people who, who made the content in the first place.
Steve:
Yeah.
Robin:
Yeah. Very different proposal. I'm not saying that airlines will cure cancer to be clear.
Um, the, the fact, the way in which is being used is problematic when it doesn't have to be. And one thing, one thing I want to say about, about the power that the, the, the promise I see with LLMs is largely around the ability of, uh, generating user interfaces on the fly, generating user experiences on the fly, um, and generating code. Because I really think that these could be used as, um, essentially like a next generation touchscreen or, or, you know, some kind of like new interface to, to systems that make it possible for people to access complex or poorly designed features of, of computers without being like, you know, stopped by bad UX design, inaccessible design, uh, like features that people don't want to expose because they don't, they don't like those to be exposed to their users. Like there's a whole slew of things, um, that airlines could enable because you can generate those user interfaces from them. I think that's where the, the, the liberation potential is with them.
And we need to like steer the space towards those much better products.
Steve:
Yeah, I gotcha. Um, sorry, I'll just, uh, you're sharing a thing. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not supposed to be sharing that though, but hold on.
Once I start sharing, this is where everything falls apart up until that point. It's, it's all good. All right.
The Rogues gallery, it's a bit of a, it's becoming more and more, it's like a deconstructed now. Now, first person, there's a clue in the name of the bird. Um, I always have Dave's photo on there.
So who is the first person? Do you, have you ever seen this person before?
Robin:
I have, but like, I don't know. It's super pixelated on my screen. I can't like really.
Steve:
Oh, these photos pretty pixelated.
Robin:
Yeah. You make, yeah. You're just making the pixels bigger at this point.
Steve:
Don't worry. That is Dr. David Swallow, my good friend. And, top class UX accessibility person.
What still works at TPGI now known as Vispero. Um, I have him on there because he's my close friend, uh, talking to close friends. Do you know who the next person is?
Robin:
I don't believe I do.
Steve:
That is Patrick Lauke.
Robin:
Oh, of course I know Patrick.
Steve:
Yeah. And Patrick is currently doing a wonderful job, bang up job at the WCAG 2 backlog because WCAG 2 has got lots of technical debt, got thousands of documents, supporting documents to the main normative text. And all of those are just, well, they, many of them are stale or getting staler by the day.
Pat and his merry band of, people with their head screwed on go through and update those to make them more usable. And so when you, you know, because WCAG, uh, W3C WCAG documents always come up in people's in people's searches.
Robin:
Uh, yep. Well, yeah.
Steve:
So, uh, that's, yeah. So, and that's what Pat's working on as well as he does. He's editor and, and, uh, chair of the, the pointer events work group as well.
He's, he's a thoughtful chap. Um, what I was going to ask you is, was that we were talking about search before, what are the, uh, what alternatives to, um, Google are there?
Robin:
I mean, there's a bunch like, I, again, I want to give like a multi-level answer to that, to that question. Right. If it's just looking for a search engine like today, um, personally, you know, I'm not paid to endorse them or anything, but like, um, I use Ecosia, Ecosia.org.
Um, it works for, I mean, like what I'm looking for in the search engine is something where you type in a query and it gives you a list of links and you can click on the links. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
It does it like really well. Uh, so I'm happy with it. I've also used DuckDuckDough quite, quite, quite a lot.
It's, it's pretty good. And I know a lot of people who are fans of Kaggy.
Steve:
Yeah, well we, that's a paid for service, isn't it? Yeah. I've been using Kagi and we've got a subscription for a few, few people in the company.
But one of the things that Pat brought up recently was that Kagi relies on the infrastructure from, um, the search infrastructure from Yandex.
Robin:
Interesting.
Steve:
Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, it's just trying to find, trying to find something like search that it doesn't use the infrastructure of one of the major companies. I mean, that's almost impossible.
Robin:
Uh, so Ecosia, so Ecosia and Quant are currently collaborating to build their own index and Brave also have their own index.
Steve:
Oh, Brave do?
Robin:
Yeah. Yeah, Brave do. Um, and so there's options that are emerging.
Most of the alternate, alternative indices are not wonderful yet. It's expensive. It's complicated.
Um, but they're getting there. They're getting better. Um, what, one of the reasons I like Ecosia, apart from the fact that they're very, a very sustainable, uh, region built business is that they basically have, so most of the search, a lot of the search results come from like Bing or Google.
Um, but they use the knowledge they gain from, uh, people searching to, to develop their own index and make it better. So you get this sort of like transitional system where you're getting a blend, blended results. You're not sure where they come from.
They could come from either, but they use that to develop the alternative, which I think is, is the pathway forward.
Steve:
And where are they based?
Robin:
Um, in Germany.
Steve:
Oh, okay.
Robin:
Yeah.
Steve:
Uh, it's an interesting company.
Robin:
It's basically, it's, it's a for-profit that's owned by a nonprofit, I think, if I remember correctly. And the, they reinvest, um, their profits in, in, in like, you know, uh, planting trees and stuff like that.
Steve:
Yeah. Yeah. You can, yeah.
If you've done a certain amount of searches, then they'll, yeah.
Robin:
They're planting trees. Yeah. So, so, so no, I, I, I like it.
I think however, that we can do better than that, you know, following the theme I was mentioning earlier of things that haven't changed since the nineties, um, you know, search really hasn't changed. I mean, now we're getting AI results, but like the, the, that's not what I want. Right.
They give me fucking links. Um, and, and I really not sponsored paid links or either. If yes, if possible, or at least if they're clearly set aside, you know, that, that, that is fine.
Steve:
But they're going now, that's the thing is it's all mixed up and it's just like, uh, yeah. Google's just shit to me.
Robin:
I mean, it's so bad. It's so once in a while, I, you know, I use someone else's phone or computer and it's, it's Google. Cause like they've bought, they've bought up everyone.
Um, and, and I'm like, what the fuck is this? This is horrendous. Um, and, but the thing is like, so that I was, I was that that's actually where I was heading towards.
I think we can change the way the search experience works in general. Um, I recently published a report it's available at FTW dot fund. Um, and it's, it's a rather comprehensive, um, look at the search browser market, but really the idea is that we could have much better search experience provided by browsers or browser extensions, except browsers don't want to do that because the money comes from sending you to Google.
And so because there's a cartel of, of, uh, browsers and, and Google working together to maintain Google's monopoly because browsers get paid more when Google makes more money. Uh, so they have a direct interest in maintaining that, that monopoly, um, which by the way, that money comes from defunding the rest of the web because the money that Google makes that way is money that would otherwise flow to the rest of the other web services, you know, like media sites and all that. Um, so basically we're in the system in which like browsers and Google are conspiring to defund, to make money by defunding the web.
We could have a better system than this.
Steve:
Well, I more than agree with you. Um, next person after Pat, you probably don't know.
Robin:
I don't think I do.
Steve:
Her name is Glenda Sims. She is chief information accessibility officer at Deque systems, which is one of the big three, uh, uh, accessibility companies, tool, tool vendors or whatever in the States. Um, but she, I just recently had her on, uh, on the, uh, fireside.
And as you can see there, she's wearing, uh, her gift from the HTMLZ, which you also get a gift, but you just choose whatever you like and I'll send it to you.
Robin:
Ooh, sounds cool.
Steve:
Yeah. From HTMLZ, choose what it'd be like for it. Send me the details and then I'll, I'll send it to you.
Cause I do it through my back, my, my, uh, fulfillment provider or whatever they're called. Um, yeah, so that it was really nice to talk to, to Glenda. I mean, I don't see eye to eye on some things to do with, cause I don't like big companies.
I'm fed up with working for, you know, I worked at Vispero. That was okay. But yeah, as, as a whole, I don't know whether large companies are a good thing or a bad thing for accessibility in particular.
I know they're not a good thing for many things. Um, but they're not that large. I mean, they're large in terms of, you know, accessibility consultancies.
They're not large in terms of they're not multiple. They are multidimensional. But anyway, moving swiftly on, uh, this photo that I, I keep photos.
I've got thousands of them. Um, do you recognize when this was taken?
Robin:
Yeah, that's, that's on the, I believe if memory serves that that's at the, the release of HTML5.
Steve:
That's right.
Robin:
At the museum of, uh, computer, um, computer museum, I forget.
Steve:
Um, yeah, yeah. It was some computer museum. Uh, that was, that was, well, that's the last time I remember bumping into you, but, um, that was in, maybe we did see each other after that because we do a bit of work on the HTML.
Um, yeah, but that was, yeah, 12 years ago now.
Robin:
We haven't changed.
Steve:
No. Well, you, you've still got that, uh, that cheeky grin.
Robin:
I'm dying with that.
Steve:
Tim Berners-Lee and, uh, Leonie Watson, who's one of my co co-directors at Tetralogical.
Robin:
And, um, big, big, big fan of Leonie. Absolutely.
Steve:
Leonie's good. Um, the next show is a black and white show. Is, is that you?
I thought it was you.
Robin:
It's me on the, on the left there and the other side. Yeah.
Steve:
Yeah. And Tess, I know Tess. Yeah.
But I thought I couldn't quite work out because there's somebody that looks similar to that. It's not the best photo. It's actually a photo of, of all of the, there was, uh, Travis, I keep thinking Travis Bickle, but his name's not Bickle, but you know, Travis, the guy from Microsoft.
Robin:
Yeah. Travis and Erica. I actually saw Travis, um, like not long ago, like two years ago.
Steve:
He got out, like he seemed to disappear. I'd seen.
Robin:
Yeah. He worked on a bunch of other things, but yeah, he's, he's mostly focused on other stuff now.
Steve:
Um, she's big at the W3C.
Robin:
Yeah. Yeah. For, for her sins.
Yeah.
Steve:
Well, yeah. You made me, made me feel like I need to wash my mouth out there when I say W3C, not that bad. There's still some good stuff.
I mean, I wasn't involved. Like I sort of got out of the, the accessibility groups for about 10 years after, after HTML5, I was just tired.
Robin:
Yeah.
Steve:
I continued on, um, doing some of the, the HTML, uh, API stuff and the, and the rules for, uh, use of ARIA, but it just, yeah, I got to the point where I got jacked at that as well. Scott's taken over, which is great. Okay.
So that, that is the, uh, the, um, deconstructed rogues gallery. I can, I can close that now. So, okay.
So, um, oh God, I got my, somehow, sometimes it thinks that I put my hand up.
Robin:
Oh, it does. It does gesture recognition.
Steve:
Just, yeah. I don't know how to turn it off.
Robin:
Yeah. I, I, I disabled that like as, as fast as I could. Cause like, I, I talk with my hands a lot and it kept doing like, you know, bubble hearts works, whatever the fuck is going on.
Steve:
Good idea to get rid of that. So, um, so you can't, so you have your own company and you're obviously contracting to, are you doing mostly working policy?
Robin:
Uh, and no, no, I, I mean, I, I do both. Right. So like that, for instance, the work I do for, for IPFS is, is very much technical work.
It's not policy. The idea is to have a protocol that is more governable, more, you know, open to Democrat, Democratic internet, but it's not, it's not policy work. Um, the, the work that I do for, um, for, you know, the, the backend protocol, for instance, is very much about governance.
So it's not technical, but it's also not policy. It's more like, how do you make a thing? You know, how do you make the governance of the, of the system work?
Um, and then, you know, uh, uh, other work I do, um, with like folks here in Brussels or like FOTI or public AI is very much like policy oriented. So, you know, how should we like think about, about these things? And then there's stuff that's sort of like a mix.
So like, for instance, the EuroSky work, well, part of it is like, Hey, like working with people who are like building infrastructure, like, and to be clear, I'm not the one doing like most of the work there. It's like that there's like highly, highly qualified people actually like making the computers run and building the things. Um, but like still working with the, with the technical people on one side, but also talking to policymakers, talking to people about like, how to like strategically make, make these things work.
So I really try to cross the chasm between, between tech and policy. It really is two spaces that have been like standing so far apart and they really shouldn't be.
Steve:
It doesn't work. Yeah. Oh, that's cool.
Um, so what are you optimistic about as far as the future of the, the web internet? Everything. Everything.
Everything. No, honestly, I think except the W3C. Everything else.
Robin:
Everything else. Um, no, I mean like, you know, we're, we're in a weird moment when it's pretty clear to most people. And by that I include like non-technical people that where the digital spaces, like the old stuff, um, you know, all the Googles and the Facebooks and, and, and all that stuff, it just isn't working.
It's just not, it just fucking sucks. Like, and, and, and this is not like for technology technologists have known this for a while. Right.
But like, in fact, I think, I think people who are not technologists themselves almost know it better than technologists because they're like, I use this every day and it really sucks. Whereas like people are like, oh, we added a new type of gradient to, you know, you should, you should rejoice. Um, um, and so we're, we're reaching a point at which like people don't know what to do next, but they want a next.
And there's tremendous potential in this moment. And I really see a shift, all the work that people are doing in the atmosphere, vibes so much like early web. Um, people are realizing, oh, hang on.
If you have a social protocol, it doesn't have to be used for a doom scrolling thing. You can use it for anything where like humans are in because like social is like anything with humans. Um, you can use it to publish metadata about like cool scientific stuff.
I mean, like people are starting to use it for all kinds of crazy use cases. Um, also the vibe I'm getting. So for instance, I spoke at public spaces last week and it used to be that people were like, oh yeah, tech, you know, it's, it has problems.
We need some regulation. And like people now, I, you know, fuck that we need money so that we can build something else because what we have is terrible. Um, and, and so we're really, I think at the very beginning of the next stage.
Um, and so I am optimistic because I really think people are starting to think about the problems in ways that lend themselves to finding solutions. People are starting to figure out that, Hey, we can't just like sleepwalk and hope that hope let's, let's hope that the, the, the tech companies are nice. Um, people are moving away from regulation is important, but it's only one part of the solution and that, you know, people are getting away from like, oh yeah, let's just like have a few things and I'll tinker with it.
Um, same thing. Like I haven't heard, I mean, it's getting really rare to hear anyone talk about tech ethics. Tech ethics is largely useless.
Um, you know, it's just like, Oh, please, can you act nice bit, Mr. Mr. Very powerful. No, you need, you need governance. You need counterpower.
You need democracy. Right. Um, and so no, I, I, I think it's hard.
It's uphill. Um, there's, you know, we're, we're up against some of the most powerful entities that have ever existed. Um, but like the, the, the stars are aligning, the people are aligning.
I think, I think the next step is going to be great. It's going to, it's going to take a fight, but it's going to be great.
Steve:
Good. Now to, uh, to finish off, um, I wanted to ask you, for some reason, I think that you, uh, you have some association with Australia. Is that just me hallucinating?
Robin:
No, it's not. I'm half Australian.
Steve:
That's what I thought.
Robin:
I thought you were with, sadly, I kind of lost the accent because I left 45 years ago. Um, and in fact, last time I went to, I can't even fake it. I can't even fake the accent much to my shame.
Uh, but last time I went to Australia, you know, I show up at the border, pull out the Australian passport. The guy asks me like a basic question. I start answering and I got through like maybe half the sentence and he's like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa.
Stop right there. Stop right there. Where did your accent go?
That's, that's not tolerable. Like, like next time I'm not letting you in.
Steve:
Really? Yeah. I mean, I still have a bit of an accent and people pick up on it, but yeah, I mean, I've been here for 18 years now, so, um, I still hear it, but it, yeah, it's faint.
Yeah. It's there, but yeah, but it's subtle. It's me all over.
It's Mr. Subtlety. Uh, well, thank you, Robin. Um, it's been really good to talk to you and likewise.
Yeah. I'm just glad there are, you know, intelligent people, smart people with a conscience.
