zlacker

>>jakobd+(OP)
This sounds like the final death blow to the web as a useful platform for anyone who isn't a corporation.

>>JohnFe+16
The Web will cease to be an open system, and will become a glorified fax machine and cable TV network. Those few who care will turn to more esoteric, incomplete, user-unfriendly but open systems. Eventually one of those systems will gain popularity with nerds, academics, and weirdos. They'll fill it with information and media they compile and create in their spare time, and it will interoperate in useful ways that for-profit corporate networks can't. Over time it will gain popularity and "normal" people will start using it too. Money will start to pour in, the network will fill up with garbage, and then corporations will come in and take it over and lock it down.

Rinse repeat.

>>gary_0+r8
> Those few who care will turn to more esoteric, incomplete, user-unfriendly but open systems.

A lot of that has been happening for a long time now.

>>JohnFe+Na
Care to share some examples?

>>gattil+Md
Just talking about subcultures/communities that I've been a part of. Several of them only have a minimal presence on the public web, having moved to a network of private sites. A couple of them have assembled what amounts to a "shadow internet" that uses the internet for an encrypted communications channel but provides its own mailservers, IM servers etc. that don't interact with the internet proper.

And, locally, there have been two ISPs set up (one by me and my friends) that aren't meant for public use, but to supply service to smaller groups. The one I set up was to supply internet service to a remote neighborhood that isn't likely to get reasonable commercial internet in the near or medium future.

Those two ISPs supply internet access, but they also operate an intranet that is mostly decoupled from the public internet.

All baby steps, and nobody is 100% "off the grid", so to speak, but it's a trend that started long ago and seems to be gaining a bit of momentum.

My prediction is that the web will ultimately be just for commercial use (it's already 90% there), and there will be a whole bunch of tiny networks -- that may or may not portal to the internet -- that will fill the needs that the internet is increasingly unable to fill.

>>JohnFe+eh
Are there people writing about this?

edit: I'm studying ways to facilitate decentralized decisionmaking in small permissioned networks.