[JiNCMG]

It's always like this until the next new thing. The big guys will control everything until something new comes around that they don't want to implement. It will be a bit harder because you have the Web Browser which is a lot flexible than the old AOL Clients. Also WebKit is available publicly for any one to fork and create a new service.

When modems were available for residential use, BBSes were the gateway and slowly were killed by the big guys (AOL, Compuserve and Prodigy) but what these big guys refused to do is work together to allow further communications with people outside of their networks.

It took kids coming out of college and wanting to keep their internet access for email, ftp, talk, usenet, gopher and http. They started to partner with universities and offer TCP/IP (over PPP) access for $20. Local BBS started to open gateways to allow it's users to send/receive SMTP emails. By the time the big guys realized they were at a disadvantage, they started to offer communications between AOL, Compuserve and Prodigy, At first charging their users extra fees, some plans made it like SMS and were charging per message. Eventually users where just using their clients to get to the internet and that service dies. Most of those small internet providers were purchased by bigger companies.

What will need to change now to kick the big guys (Verizon, Google, Apple, etc...) in the balls again? The tech is so regulated that I doubt we will see anything new as far and networking. In NYC WiMax was hobbled by the communication companies like Verizon TimeWarner and RCN.