The agents Sir Tim Berners-Lee dreamed of are here. But Big Tech is fencing them in.

As early as 2001, Sir Tim Berners-Lee described a web run by software agents. He gave the example about finding a physical therapist that took one's insurance, fitting everyone's calendars, moving from clinic to insurer to calendar without anyone ever opening a browser.

It never happened, because every website at the time would have had to label its pages for machines. That was a lot of work, so almost nobody bothered.

As MIT Technology Review's "The agentic web is here" (opens in a new tab) explains, language models skipped that cumbersome step.

Agents such as Meta's Muse and OpenAI's Dots now book, buy and sort inboxes for people.

The dream came true. And then, almost at once, everyone started building walls around it.

The first wall keeps agents out

Companies such as Yelp openly say they admit them only if they pay for its data. Delta in the US stops them from booking tickets. JPMorgan Chase and Schwab keep them out of accounts. Amazon blocked Muse recently, and (surprise!) Amazon happens to promote a shopping agent of its own. Where agents are welcome at all, they're only welcome if they pay, or if they belong to the house.

The second wall keeps users in

Meta says "turning away a personal agent means turning away the customer behind it," which sounds like a defense of the open web. But it only really looks like that Meta's own networks (and businesses that pay to be featured) will be favoured by Muse.

“An agent that could take you anywhere... would probably take you back into Meta's walled garden.”

The third wall decides who counts

Visa and Mastercard are building registries of approved agents that sign each request. A signed agent beats one pretending to be Chrome. But a registry needs an owner, and an owner can charge admission. Microsoft economist David Rothschild expects companies to "build barriers in order to maintain the consumer base that they have."

Some walls are important, because they are about our own safety. But most walls also protect a business model, and safety seems to be a convenient name for a moat.

We've seen this before. The move to mobile apps left people without phones locked out of many services that were designed to be mobile-first, and if agents become the normal way to book, buy and apply, whoever owns the walls decides who gets served.

The web was built so you didn't need anyone's permission to link to a page. The agentic web is being built so you need permission for everything. A web where a handful of companies decide who's allowed in isn't the open web with better security. It isn’t what Berners-Lee dreamed of either. It's an exclusive members' club.

Let the agents roam. The web never had a bouncer. It doesn’t need one now.