What is the Small Web? – Aral Balkan

... or Why Small is Beautiful when it comes to our homes online:

"a concept – and a vision for the future of our species in the digital and networked age –... The Small Web.... [By comparison:] The Big Web has “users” – a term Silicon Valley has borrowed from drug dealers to describe the people they addict ... farm users in server farms... you never own ... You must rent your home from Megacorps... [and] pay for it by forfeiting your privacy, freedom of speech, and your other human rights. Collectively, we pay for it by forfeiting a democratic future...".

By contrast, "The Small Web is the Single Tenant Web... we do not have the concept of “users”. When we refer to people, we call them people.... [whereas] on the Big Web we trust servers and distrust clients ... on the Small Web, we distrust servers and trust clients."

Aral sees one major challenge: "making the ownership and control of your own web site or application as seamless ... does not require any technical know-how", although IMHO there's another: many people are addicted to free, even if they pay non-financially. But in pursuit of the usability goal, "we’re making Site.js... creating a service where you can get up and running ... at your own independent domain and ... server in under a minute." (good goal for massive.wiki).