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.Anyone can link to my site from whatever social network they use.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.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.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.