c.Figallo

Anil Dash makes good case that the revolutionary, game-changing approach to using the Internet that is represented by Google’s Wave technologies, may not catch on simply because it requires such a shift from the way the Web has organically evolved over the past decade. The Web and its applications have been following a path of incremental progress, while Wave asks that many assumptions and habits be discarded in favor of an approach that may very well offer advantages, but is an abrupt departure from what Anil calls “the Web Way.”

It’s impossible to project how the world and our use of the Internet might change for the better if everyone switched over to Wave. There are many technological leaps being proposed to us these days that would require a similar social disruption, from battery-powered vehicles to everyone switching to mass transit and living in eco-villages. Good for us, good for the planet, but asking a lot in terms of adaptation and adjustment.

And yet, we need look back only 15 years to a time when only a small population had made the leap to the Web, and there were no pocketable cell phones. We are a very adaptable people if we have a good enough reason to change.

Maybe Wave will build a bridge to make the transition smoother than it would need to be today.