[akoboldfrying]

> If they didn't have the incentive to get a monopoly we would have kept a more decentralized web.

And we would have kept a more inconvenient web, since without that incentive, Facebook etc. would never have had reason to pay for an army of software developers to implement and improve the site and servers to host it.

[mastermage]

what improvements? The algorithm that radicalises people and keeps them seperated in bubbles? The Mass Data Harvesting?

[inigyou]

Are you implying something about Facebook is convenient?

[akoboldfrying]

Yes, absolutely. Facebook became successful because at the time it was much more convenient than existing ways of accomplishing the same thing it did (interacting socially with other people, meeting new people), including even existing websites like myspace which were themselves more convenient than trying to create one's own website and grow a community, or traveling to meet people face-to-face.

Why do you think it became successful?