People use the words “internet” and “web” as if they mean the same thing. They don’t. The internet is a giant network of computers that connect to each other. The World Wide Web is just one of many things that runs over that network - like a single TV channel running over a cable.
The Web was invented in 1989 by a British scientist named Tim Berners-Lee at a research lab called CERN. He wanted physicists to share documents easily. So he combined three ideas: pages of information, links that jumped between them and addresses so each page had its own home (those URLs that start with “https://”).
Email, video calls, multiplayer games, app updates and streaming all use the internet but aren’t part of the Web. And here’s the most generous part: Berners-Lee never patented his invention. He gave it to the world for free. Without that one decision, the modern internet would look very, very different.
