I think the web is already a lost battle. It'll just take time (a lot of it) for the control to fully sink in. But I think that once this control becomes mainstream then there will be something else with more freedom. Some form of an alternate internet that will have barriers to entry. Something like tor. It'll probably be based on p2p.

Gab's rework of Mastodon is starting to look like this.

How is the network layer open when legit SMTP servers with proper SPF records are blacklisted by Google and Microsoft with no accountability. The internet is owned by these organisations. It's a fait accompli. It's only a matter of time before sites not hosted on cloud platforms become blacklisted due to the pitfalls of self-hosted certification. Jeeezus.

Refusal of large email providers to properly federate is certainly frustrating, but I was actually referring to the network layer in the OSI model. So long as the raw IP traffic isn't subject to broad and pervasive restrictions by the authorities, new software stacks can be freely invented and used on a worldwide basis (IPFS, for example).

(Speaking of other software stacks, a few Gopher servers remain online today [1] and there's even a DECnet in operation! [2])

[1] http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/gw?gopher/0/v2/vstat

[2] http://www.update.uu.se/~bqt/hecnet.html