The internet slipped through our fingers.
The greatest technological promise of our age has become a machine for harvesting attention, fragmenting minds, and deepening loneliness.
What happened?
From Wikipedia to Cambridge Analytica, from Snowden to Palantir, from Tristan Harris to Elon Musk, from HTML to AI — The Internet We Will Deserve traces the history of a promise that became unrecognizable, without surrendering to nostalgia or catastrophism. Understanding how we got here is the first step toward refusing to simply endure it.
Because the story isn’t over yet.
The Authors
Antoine Bidegain
Antoine Bidegain holds an agrégation in social and economic sciences — France’s most competitive teaching qualification. He began his career in education before pivoting to digital project development in the public sector, working successively as a project officer, a cabinet adviser, and now as head of the digital territories and data division at the Bordeaux metropolitan authority. He has founded several nonprofit organizations exploring the cultural and collaborative potential of the internet, and is a regular speaker at conferences on digital inclusion and the broader societal stakes of our online lives.
Sophie Woodville
Sophie Woodville launched her career in Paris before putting down roots in the San Francisco Bay Area. From 2011 to 2017, she led the French-American Chamber of Commerce for Northern California — putting her squarely at the heart of the tech world, in the place where it all happens. She has since returned to Bordeaux, her hometown, where she heads the metropolitan authority’s efforts to build international digital cooperation partnerships, working closely with the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights (CC4DR). She is a frequent speaker at international conferences on the subject.
L'internet que nous mériterons 