It feels like the web is becoming more closed every year — fewer open forums, more platforms locking away data and communities behind logins. What do you think are the biggest forces driving the decline of the open internet? Are walled gardens like Discord the main problem, or is it something else like artificial intelligence, corporate consolidation, surveillance, or changing user habits?
Walled gardens are most of the problem, and they’re only getting more walled over time as companies move from expanding their platform to exploiting it for returns. CloudFlare is kind of an exception, as it’s still giving away a lot of free services. Once it starts being evil it’s going to really suck.
Closed-down hardware is the biggest emerging threat. You can leave the proprietary software ecosystem if you want, but a SoC is DIY-resistant.
The surveillance is more of a surprise tool for when shit gets really ugly. Which is super bad, but not directly about the internet.