Are closed social networks inevitable? (2010)
My "social network" is the internet.  I can control where my domain resolves and I can serve content over HTTP and handle email via SMTP.<p>Anyone can link to my site from whatever social network they use.<p>I may or may not be able to link to everyone else, though.  So far, I have no external links on my site. They're too likely to be broken in a year or three.  If I get email related to my site, I often post it to the site.<p>I hope I can continue to interoperate with other people like this.  I have tried a couple other social networks like Hacker News and Twitter, but if they disappeared or acted in a way I didn't like, I could abandon them without much loss.<p>Do I have any reason to be scared that my current setup might become "closed" in the future? Not trying to be paranoid, just wondering.