The Open Web Is Dying
Anyone remember when Netscape was a browser monopoly? Then microsoft, then google?<p>Or ICQ, then AIM and MSN messenger, then various, culminating in a WhatsApp owning IM.<p>Or MySpace’s social media monopoly being replaced by Facebook?<p>Yeah privacy is important. Has been since long before we were railing against the Clipper chip in the 90s.<p>Yeah companies have been grabbing data for a while. And it predates the web back to direct marketers and before.<p>Walled gardens and vendor lock-in are nothing new. The publishing platforms of today are doing exactly what AOL was doing over 20 years ago.<p>Today’s web let’s anyone spin up a fresh IP in seconds and use 100% open source software that they can freely modify to publish just about anything they want, while retaining full control of the entire stack down to the NIC, with total portability.<p>If you use one of the many platforms that want to lock you in and eat all your data, that’s your choice. But you don’t have to. Is it that the open minded consumer is dying?