I thought these (long read) articles by the same author were very interesting. He seems to be somewhat pro net neutrality while I am anti-net neutrality, but he goes beyond the hot button issues of net neutrality to talk about the infrastructure and operational aspects of the web and the internet.
I thought he made some really good points, especially regarding some of the things we talk about here, like public access to the internet as well as privacy issues, not only "mind your own business" privacy, but how the big players like Facebook are basically creating a "private web" just because of their size and number of users, which creates a biased influence on "the culture" I guess is as good a word as any, of the overall web.
In many ways, the "private web" reminds me very much of the early days of AOL, Compuserve, etc. I was a beta tester (thanks to the help of a friend) on AOL at the time they were transitioning from Quantum Computer Services to AOL proper. In the early days, they were a great interface to the internet and an easy way to use the web. I remember Bill Gates would pop into discussion forums there (BMW forums IIRC) and was just a regular user like everyone else.
Then AOL began growing, very much like a proto-facebook, in which new people to the web looked at AOL
as the web and Internet. They really knew nothing of any part of the Internet outside of AOL. Then as the Internet grew, AOL somewhat faced the reverse of what is happening with Facebook (where if you're not part of Facebook, like me, in many ways you're not part of the web) and in order to survive, opened itself up to the web.
The result was much of what I think the author here is discussing. When AOL opened up a "seamless" connection to Usenet for discussion, a majority of AOL users had no idea there was a Usenet, which for those who remember it, was indeed a good example of the free (as in thought) web. That includes people telling other people to *expletive deleted*ck off in discussions. The AOL users of course, had never seen things like this, and would post on Usenet that they were reporting "abusive behavior" as TOS (AOL Terms of Service) violations. Hilarity ensued among regular Usenet users.
The point being, that many AOL users who only entered the WWW via AOL thought the web was AOL, and that everything that happened there should conform to the culture of AOL. Much as the author is suggesting is happening through the culture of Facebook (and Google, et. al.), with the difference being that Facebook is vastly larger than AOL ever was - big enough to change the culture of the web, vs the AOL example, where AOL users had to adapt to the greater WWW when the web was blossoming.
Anyway, I found the author's thesis thought provoking.
https://staltz.com/the-web-began-dying-in-2014-heres-how.htmlhttps://staltz.com/a-plan-to-rescue-the-web-from-the-internet.html
