[esarbe]

Not sure what you would describe as "the open web", but from my perspective, the "open web" died with the hypercommercialisation of the web. Nowadays everywhere you look there are walled gardens, if they aren't walled gardens they are honey traps to lure you to divulge private data.

[TeMPOraL]

I think Google is working off and promoting a peculiar definition of "open web", which is an ecosystem of a) commercial actors, and b) resources (individuals) to be exploited by said commercial actors. The "openness" of that web is focused mostly of making it easier for the commercial actors to make money off exploiting resources. Efficient and unencumbered exchange of information or culture doesn't even enter the picture.

[lrem]

That's not the impression I got. Note that Google does not need the hypercommercialization to earn money. The moment you allowed your site to be indexed, Google earned its cut.