The memex device imagined a lattice of information that grows and can be built on top of incrementally. The internet and hypertext are that—nearly all the world’s information is now captured in the format of the web. However, it’s disjointed which makes it largely inaccessible.
We’re not so much “surfing the web” as we are “rock climbing the web”.
A web browser is how we view the internet, but we can only access certain parts. Some information is behind logins, paywalls, or even firewalls.
The only way to query the vast internet is by a service that can ingest it in it’s entirety and index it as a service—Google. Because this is the primary way people access information, content gets created for (and subsequently mediated by) Google.
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Hyperlinks as a Foundation for Distributed Knowledge Fails Because it Lacks Transclusion
Hyperlinks are a reliable way of connecting content together. However, they are not a solid foundation for distributed knowledge that can be added to over time. Without the properties of transclusion, it’s not possible to build on top of it.