[Nervetattoo]

I think just about everyone here will agree that what you describe is more of an ideal web that we want. However, the problem is finding motivation for regular users to sacrifice, and if they wont then you need the big corporations to sacrifice to get there. How can we find motivation for either part?

I think this will be an extremely long process that is slowly happening on a minor scale, but that we will never see a fully open web - ever - just because of the lack of motivation from its central actors: users and providers.

Things like Wikipedia, OpenID/OAuth, FluidDB, more open API-s (although we don't own the data) are all pointers to the web maybe being more semi-transparent in the future. I mean, things are getting more open, but it will simply never be fully open, no matter how much us developers and geeks want it. If however someone like google or apple were to find a model were they could still earn their money while being transparent and open, then I would start believing.

The best way to facilitate this process is by doing your part by implementing your site/service in an open and transparent way. If you get successful people will take notice.