It is vital to preserve the right for individuals to have control over their online experiences. A way to ensure that peoples choices and preferences are respected by technology platforms is advocating end-to-end principles. This would represent a return to the original spirit of the internet, where users have more control over what they see and receive, rather than being subject to manipulation or prioritization by platforms for their own gain, writes Cory Doctorow.

"Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers."

–Larry Page & Sergey Brin

The internet succeeded where other networks failed. Where there were once many nets – cable, phone, leased-line – now there is just The Net, which runs over many of the same substrates, but which has subsumed them all. The secret of the internet’s success was to reduce, reduce, reduce. If we can’t agree on the right way to do x, perhaps we can agree on the right way to do y, upon which we might someday build x? Take a smaller step, agree on a foundation, keep decomposing a seemingly monolithic technological project into ever-smaller pieces until we find one that we can all agree on. Build that, then do it again, finding another step that everyone can get behind.