A Better Internet
— Building a Web That Works for People, Not Platforms
"A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them." — Steve Jobs
Most of us would agree that our relationship with the internet is complicated to say the least. There’s a growing sense of fatigue every time we go online. When we scroll for news we get swamped by pop-ups and autoplay videos before reaching what we came for. Still, we depend on it for almost everything: communication, banking, news, shopping, work. It has become nearly impossible to live without it.
Think about how many times in a week you are asked to “create an account” or “sign in with Google”. Each time you hand over your personal details — name, email, password, date of birth, sometimes even more. Behind the scenes, that data doesn’t just stay with the site you gave it to. It is shared, sold, and stitched together into detailed profiles about who you are, what you like, and even how you think.
We accept this as the price of participation. But it is a price that keeps rising. Our inboxes fill with spam and our attention is captured by algorithmic feeds we never asked for. Our data fuels profits for others, while it is becoming increasingly obvious that we are the product, not the customer.
The internet was supposed to liberate us, which in many ways it has. However, too often it feels like a system of surveillance and control or, at the very least, a system that sucks energy out of us.
The promise of a new internet
What if the internet could be rebuilt so that it served people directly?
In fact, it is what a growing number of innovators are working on today. Ty Everett, founder of Project Babbage[1], describes it simply as the new internet.
The new internet isn’t about faster broadband or shinier apps. The new internet means redesigning the foundations so that people are in charge of their data, their identity, and their value.
Here’s what that could look like:
One identity, everywhere. Instead of filling in endless sign-up forms, your secure digital identity would travel with you. You choose what to share and with whom and there will no longer be a need to give away personal details just to read an article.
Fair exchange. If you would like to access a piece of content, this is facilitated through paying a penny or two directly to the creator. There will be no need for subscriptions, capturing you in cycles of automated renewal or invasive advertising.
Direct connections. You could send money, messages, or media instantly to anyone online with no bank delays, platform filters or hidden fees.
Ownership by design. When you post a photo, write an article, or invent a design, it stays yours. You decide how it can be used and whether others can profit from it.
The new internet is helping us restore something we have lost: the ability to interact online without surrendering control to giant platforms.
Why the current internet can’t deliver this
The way the web works today is shaped by its early design. The protocols that move information around the internet were never built to handle value, trust, or identity. They were designed for sharing files in an academic network, not for running the global economy.
As a result, we’ve ended up with workarounds in the form of passwords, log-in screens, ad-based revenue models, with banks and card networks bolted onto online commerce. Each layer added convenience, but also complexity, cost, and a surrender of control over our digital footprint.
The consequences are clear:
A handful of platforms control most of the world’s online activity.
Billions of people remain excluded because they lack access to bank accounts or credit cards.
Creators struggle to earn a living, while middlemen thrive.
Trust online is fragile, easily broken by scams, deepfakes, manipulation and censorship.
It is inefficient, but also corrosive.
The missing piece: value built into the foundations
A new internet that truly serves people requires a foundation that can handle value and trust as natively as the old internet handled information. Without such a foundation, all our digital interactions remain patched together: functional, but fragile.
This is where the BSV blockchain comes in.
Forget the noise of speculative cryptocurrencies. BSV is different. It’s not a private company or a fad coin. It’s the original Bitcoin protocol[2], restored to how it was designed to function: scalable, stable, and lawful.
Think of it as the plumbing of the new internet. Just as electricity grids allow energy to flow reliably to every home, the BSV blockchain allows value and data to flow securely between people and applications. It doesn’t decide what you can do with it or extract profit by harvesting your data. It simply provides the pipes — neutral, open, and dependable.
On top of this foundation, developers like Project Babbage are building the everyday interfaces: wallets, apps, identities, and marketplaces that let ordinary people interact with the web in a way that is seamless and feels natural.
Everyday life on the new internet
So what does this mean in practice? Imagine a few everyday scenarios:
Digital identity: you log in to a new service with one click and your identity is verified, but you don’t hand over your full personal history. You control what’s visible and what stays private.
Reading news: instead of hitting a paywall or being bombarded with ads, you pay a cent to read an article. The money goes straight to the journalist or publication. No subscriptions or data harvesting.
Messaging friends: you send a voice note instantly across the world, with a built-in option to add a tiny payment for premium features. It’s settled immediately, no bank involved.
Buying music: you stream a song and pay the artist directly with each play. The artist doesn’t need to wait months for a platform to process royalties.
Each of these examples may sound small, but together they add up to a radical shift: a web where people transact directly with one another, without hidden intermediaries.
From an extractive economy to a value-based economy
Today’s internet is shaped by extraction. Platforms extract data, attention, and profits from users and creators. Even our currencies are built on debt, fuelling inflation and instability. This is why inflation feels like a constant — the system requires it.
The new internet makes a different model possible. When value can move as easily as information, we create the conditions for a value-based economy:
Creators are rewarded directly for their contributions.
Communities can fund projects collectively without middlemen.
Innovation flourishes because barriers to entry are lowered.
Billions of people currently excluded from the financial system can participate with nothing more than a mobile phone.
It is more efficient, but more importantly, more just, restoring dignity to the act of creation and exchange.
Not a dream — a work in progress
Scepticism is natural. Haven’t we heard promises of a “better internet” before?
The difference this time is that the foundation already exists. The BSV blockchain is live and the infrastructure is being built and applications are being developed. The pieces are here, they work, and can meet the demands of a global user-base.
Unlike today’s payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard, which handle thousands of transactions per second, the new internet’s infrastructure is designed to handle millions — with no ceiling.
To connect billions of people and devices, the internet itself is shifting to a new system of addresses, called IPv6. Interestingly, parts of the developing world are already ahead in this transition, positioning them to leapfrog into the new internet.
This won’t mean change will happen overnight, but the path forward is clear. There is no need for us to continue to accept a web dominated by surveillance, speculation, and monopolies. We can choose to build and use something far better.
Reclaiming the web
The internet is one of the greatest human inventions, but it has been captured by interests that don’t always serve us. The good news is that its story doesn’t end here. A better version is emerging where the user is at the centre, not the product.
By grounding the web in value, not exploitation, we can reclaim it.
The new internet will make daily life online more human, more free, and more fair. This shift is bigger than most of us realise and it is just around the corner.
A better internet isn’t just possible — it’s already on its way.
“This is what Bitcoin really is about. Bitcoin is a value network, a global way of opening trade. Bitcoin is there to enable you to create the next wave of global commerce.” — Dr Craig S Wright
About the Author: Anna Thalena Iversen is a former City of London financial services lawyer who now designs value-aligned finance. Anna has spent more than 20 years as a financial services lawyer in the City of London, having worked for financial institutions, law firms and consultancy firms, but left the profession in 2016 after the passing of her parents to cancer. This spurred her to embark on a new career in the health and wellbeing space where she became involved in a number of start-up and scale-up business ventures using novel, unique protocols and technologies. Since leaving her first career in finance, Anna has committed herself to re-imagining how the world of financial services could evolve to become aligned with human creativity, generating abundance rather than acting as its impediment — forcing humanity to focus on survival instead of thriving. There is clearly more in store for humanity than what we have seen and experienced, and Anna has devoted her time and energy into projects supporting these endeavours, in the knowledge that the pen is always mightier than the sword.
You can find Anna’s work on Substack
[1] Project Babbage. Thank you Ty Everett (@TyEverett11 on X) of Project Babbage (@Project Babbage on X) for your remarks on Gavin Mehl’s (@GavinMehl on X) X Space this past weekend, recorded on YouTube
[2] Bitcoin White Paper entitled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, by Satoshi Nakamoto, 31 October 2008 bitcoin.pdf