I think the new web will be one made up of closed off islands that use strict paywalls to finance themselves. I also think the total amount of content will be lower and that the remaining platforms will more heavily skew towards "safe" guidelines.
It won't go back to the early web, but it will certainly survive. Much like life, people find a way. If there is demand, innovators will find a way to meet it.
The webs continued existence is not dependent on surveillance capitalism.
> Much like life, people find a way. If there is demand, innovators will find a way to meet it.
That's like saying that life is equally good and the US and North Korea because "people find a way" to work around problems. There's a real way in which economic inefficiencies reduce our standard of living. Making advertising worse on purpose is just a race to the bottom, all feel-good crusading without any end benefit to humanity.
"But I won't be tracked!", the privacy people say. So what? What harm will you have prevented?