| Meh, I disagree with a lot of that. You speak as if the internet ONLY consists of social now. Your points are nostalgic and looking at the past through rose tinted glasses IMO. Five years ago, most social photos were uploaded to Flickr You can still do this. People choose not to. I don't want strangers viewing my social pictures, esp if I had kids. These are private moments to be shared with my friends. Ten years ago, you could allow people to post links on your site You still can, it's your site. If you decide to monetize your site and display AdWords then that's your call. You don't have to be a sheep and follow what everyone else is doing. In 2003, if you introduced a single-sign-in service that was run by a company... Don't use them and create an account. No one is forcing you to use them, but for some of us (me) it's just easier to link several sign-ins together with my Google account. These are generally sites I trust. If I don't trust them then I'll use a disposable email account anyway to register. If the "average man" on the street doesn't know better then that's his/her problem, it's the same basic principle as identity theft and people guard against that. It's time they did the same online. In the early days of the social web, there was a broad expectation that regular people might own their own identities by having their own websites Really? A few people maybe, but most non-tech people I know really couldn't give 2 hoots. Wordpress and all the blogging sites have made a lot more people I know open their "own" sites than would have been owning a domain name and all the other hosting and "headache" that goes with it. Five years ago, if you wanted to show content from one site or app on your own site or app... Yes, agree it is bad, but that's business. The same thing happens in the real world, just because it is online the principles of business do not disappear and unfortunately not everyone is that tech-savvy and some of those people who pumped millions into a business may not "get" the web like you. I don't think we have "lost" any of these. People have just decided to move on as the technology has advanced. The internet is a lot more open and a lot more accessible to many more people than it has ever been. As a developer I may care about the above (I don't) but as a regular joe, I don't think I would waste 2 seconds, no matter how long I have been using the web. |