It started with a problem.
Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web at CERN in 1989. Its initial purpose was to help scientists share information across universities and institutes. By the end of 1990, the first web browser and server were running at CERN. The familiar act of following a link emerged from an information-sharing problem.
Historical sources below ↓Then something changed.
On 30 April 1993, CERN put the Web software in the public domain. CERN subsequently made a release available under an open licence. Making the technology freely available was an important part of allowing others to use and develop it.
What a builder can learn.
Our interpretation: reducing the effort of participation can matter as much as improving the experience inside a product. If your customer needs a partner to adopt your system too, every extra condition creates another obstacle. Examine what a newcomer must understand, install, or negotiate before they can contribute.
A door still open.
A hypothesis to explore: a service could create value by making useful information easier to link and reuse across small organizations. Test a narrow use case with a few collaborators. Observe whether they actually reuse the information before assuming openness alone creates demand.
What could someone do with your product if joining required one fewer permission or technical step?
Follow the evidence.
History is sourced below. Business lessons are editorial interpretations; future possibilities are questions to test, not predictions.
Prepared from primary-source histories. First edition: 23 Sept 2026.