Similar in vision to Solid PODs and Urbit, the author envisions a future in which users don’t need to visit multiple third-party applications directly to access services – rather, third-party developers will build open bridges from their applications into your personal VMS through permissioned modules and add-ons using highly vetted Software Development Kits and Application Programming Interfaces, which are tools that help developers to easily integrate specific functionalities between their application and yours.

Imagine being able to book a telemedicine doctor appointment directly through your VMS and paying for the doctor’s consultation with the digital assets you earned by contributing your compute and storage resources to secure blockchain networks. Moreover, consider an in-built access control mechanism to decrypt or revoke access to your Electronic Medical Record that you safely host in the cloud at your full control, always a few clicks away in case of need. This is merely the tip of the iceberg of where the future is inevitably headed. This is the general direction all of the aforementioned projects are aiming for, before a total clampdown of both our physical and internet realities without the protections of privacy.

User data will be highly protected through military-grade encryption and randomised public keys and browser fingerprints to provide greater privacy guarantees from prying eyes. Smart contracts will automatically handle a lot of functionalities under the hood providing individuals empowerment, privacy and dignity – while our physical lives become more fully monitored and tracked.

With self-sovereign identity, leveraged cryptography and decentralised blockchain and storage infrastructures, the future of the web will be both safer and ‘darker’ than ever before. This is the future the author and others are building towards, and this is where the future of the web must head for the sake of preservation of liberty.