Why the web is a mess

Tom Scott looks at how the web devolved from a universal linked information system into a bit of a mess.

There are two reasons, he says: advertisers and people. The web was originally stateless. Then came cookies, which were so useful that they got built into web standards. Those of us who remember the pre-cookie web know that there were many pros and lots of cons in terms of scalable utility, but the misuse of cookies was almost inevitable.

Image: YouTube / Tom Scott