[msla]

The Web and email are both decentralized.

The Internet is decentralized to the extent there's no single "Internet company" which can kick you off.

Various companies try very hard to make you forget these things.

[jvagner]

I wonder if the case isn’t that we don’t allow new technologies to be truly decentralized. Email and web came from a time before... our market/startup forces in play today may not yield a new, true decentralization because the urge to monetize is stronger now than before.

[oblio]

Almost no new B2C web company can work without Google.

[salawat]

Technically it can. You just have to use alternate old school advertising practices to get discovered. Radio/television spots, word-of-mouth, Billboard, etc...

The very fact you think it is impossible to reach end users without using Google should highlight just how much they have cornered the market.

Remember, internet search was not always a given, and the worked just fine.

[lugg]

In lesser words, almost.

[thekyle]

That's a pretty bold claim, care to elaborate?

[msla]

So? That isn't what I'm talking about.

[superkuh]

Companies are not the web.