A circle closing: 1994- 2003 Hubert Burda was on the Board of Advisers for Interactive Publishing, the international conference for media companies I organized in Zurich. It was a time of great hope. We talked of the fantastic changes coming to us. Like the potential of people sharing ideas, developing concepts and ideas across continents, how knowledge would be accessible to all. All of it true. And of course being a business conference we always talked about the way newspapers could make money in this great new thing.

In Hubert Burda´s DLD conference this year long standing travel companion Mike Butcher will have had as much a “wait a minute, am I still on the the right track?” moment as many seeing this exchange. He was even at the heart of it when Andrew Keen (“What about the Arab revolution?”) called to arms such seemingly forgotten virtues as responsibility, privacy, equality and demanded much more regulation. Has the internet revolution of which we were part of swept away not only old hats but also basic values – and are we all responsible to fix what we have broken?

I felt being talked to. But check for yourself.