Stephen Downes

I was all in ten years ago when Rest of World came out. It would finally be an authentic source of international voices. And that's how it presented itself. Only later, when it was revealed to have been founded by Sophie Schmidt, daughter of former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, and Wendy Schmidt, did I realize what sort of trajectory we were really being taken along. Viewed through this new context (not 'lens') story selection became more suspect and motivation less clear. And now we've reached the inevitable point where Amercan commercialism trumps, if you will, the rest of world: the subscriptions are being required now, and it's only a matter of time before payment will be required. Then an exit.