"A model that took some of the revenue from subscription payments and had a royalty structure paying money back to the content creators who made the Internet interesting would make for a more robust Internet. It would also enable providers with only a small niche to have an easy mechanism to make a little bit of money. We're getting there so far on the advertising model. We have to get the subscription model going. "
Brewster Kahle, the digital librarian of the Internet, was an early member of the Thinking Machines team, where he invented the WAIS system. Wais was an Internet publishing company that created tools and services to help publishers make money by publishing on the Internet. The company made "surf" software and software for those sophisticated enough to self-publish. It also worked with publishers to create an Internet presence, through the World Wide Web and, before that, gopher. Customers included the The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Government Printing Office, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House, all of which were interested in making their information available on the Internet.
He later started WAIS, Inc. (sold to AOL), the nonprofit Internet Archive, and the related for-profit Alexa Internet (sold to Amazon.com). He is the founder of the Internet Archive, and, in 2005, he founded The Open Library which will allow people to print out genuine-looking pages from a vast online archive.
His goal is "Universal Access to all Knowledge".
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"Brewster is one of those guys who has been successful in spite of the fact that he has never been after that kind of success. He's been pushing protocols for the benefit of humanity in order to make things run better. What he's done with Wais and protocols has been instrumental in bringing about the success of the Internet."