zlacker

>>ANewbu+(OP)
In short, governments and internet do no mix. Whenever they do, it ends in a disaster for the people.

>>gethly+cG2
But also, Internet with zero governance isn't any better for the people.

So what's left?

>>Sidebu+hG2
Are you sure?

Back in late 90s, 2000s, even 2010s, the internet was truly awesome. Only once governments started to get involved, by increasing the red tape and adding restrictions and whatnot, it became shit.

So I would argue that you are completely wrong. Yes, it might have been a bit of a wild west, but that is a good thing because you needed to have some smarts to navigate it and that filtered out the dumb masses that pollute it today and why we cannot have nice things.

I am not saying people should not have access to it, just that the less people there were, the better it was and the less attention it had by the governments. Which in turn made it much better experience than it is today.

But most people, actually, have not lived through those "early" days and cannot even comprehend how great it was back then and how crappy and restricted it is today.

>>gethly+2K2
> So I would argue that you are completely wrong.

You could argue that, but it would be idiotic. It would be deeply and deliberately ignorant of e.g. Facebook complicity in ethnic massacres in Myanmar. Cambridge Analytica. Youtube as an engine of algorithmic radicalisation. The continued extremism on what was once Twitter. Online anti-vax disinformation. QAnon. All of Truth Social.

You posit it as "people vs governments" but that is not the reality. There is a third force. "The people" don't run the internet any more. A few incredibly wealthy oligarchs control most of it, and this trend is strengthening. Elon. Zuck. Jeff. Satya. Sergey. Rupert. You know who I mean from one or two syllables each and that's telling. This state of affairs requires government inaction as power consolidates.

> But most people, actually, have not lived through those "early" days

I have been online since the mid 1990s, so whatever point you might be trying to make doesn't apply to me.

The idea that "Government red tape ruined the internet" is just nonsense.

>>Sidebu+bL2
By the way, "back then", when there was no or little regulation, online businesses had to build trust by being reliable and deliver on their promises. That is why paypal could have even taken off as a business. Nowadays, with regulations, we are supposed to trust every company because it is regulated or might have some kind of legal danger for not providing services and whatnot, yet that is not the case in reality.

So again, i argue that internet before facebook, instagram, tinder... was in its golden age mostly due to lack of government involvement and too many people being online.

>>gethly+0X2
IDK, this makes very little sense to me. You used to rely on but trust, and now you can't ... because government? You have to trust and it doesn't work? So maybe don't do that and you'd be back where you were?

The "mostly due to lack of government involvement" part that you abruptly pivot to in the second para is completely unsupported and does not tell a compelling story about how we got here. Try Cory Doctorow on "Enshitification" which does, and it's all about consolidation and large company leverage. The only way that government is involved is as a bystander who could have done something but did not.