[dalbasal]

Hello 2003.

I remember when the "great firewall" seemed like a joke, as did digital copyright compliance, online censorship or basically any means of controlling the internet. Information wanted to be free, and neither man nor king could stand in its way.

Maybe that is true, and the last 15 years have been an aberration. But... that would mean a reversal of a trend, not a continuation of the current one. To me it seems likely (careful with inevitabilities) that the internet will increasingly become a way of controlling people.

[grishka]

The problem is excessive centralization. The internet used to be millions of servers owned by independent people and organizations. That was, for all intents and purposes, uncontrollable. Now much of the internet is comprised of giant platforms that are a whole lot easier to coerce to comply with even most nonsensical regulations.

[pope_meat]

The cloud brought a storm with it, and it's drowning the decentralized nature of the internet. Convenience is what will hang us, but hey, it was very convenient.