zlacker

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+(OP)
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.