[Interview 18/08/1998 // Interview 25/07/1999]
*Interview of August 18, 1998
= How do you see the growth of a multilingual Web?
You speak of the Web in the singular. As you may have read (on my website), I think "The Web" is a political, not a technological concept. A civilization is possible with extremely advanced computers, but no interconnection. The idea that there should be "one Web" comes from the liberal tradition of the single, open, preferably global market.
The Internet should simply be broken up in multiple Nets, and Europe should cut the links with the US and build a systematically incompatible net for Europe. (…) Remember that 15 years ago, everyone thought there would be one global TV station, CNN. Now there are French, German and Spanish global TV channels.
So the answer to your question is that the "one Web" will split up anyway — probably into these four components:
1. An internal US/Canadian anglophone Net, with many of the original characteristics
2. Separate national Nets, with limited outside links
3. A new global Net specifically to link the nets of category 2
4. Possibly a specific EU Net