The paradox is, platforms like Facebook never could arise without the free internet for people to rapidly prototype, evolve, pivot and merge ideas. Hopefully, having a free (as in, non corporate controlled) internet will come to be seen as an important economic differentiator. I would argue that economic success* for a country in the 21st century and beyond is largely going to hinge on it having an open internet ecosystem.

* = unless we trash the natural ecosystem, of course, in which case all bets are off

>The paradox is, platforms like Facebook never could arise without the free internet for people to rapidly prototype, evolve, pivot and merge ideas.

I think that's not really a paradox but orthogonal.

For one, successful platforms have risen in closed ecosystems too. E.g the TV networks of yore were very closed ecosystems, but several forms and platforms emerged in them.

Second, the creation destroying the environment that created it is not really a paradox. It's one way to assure no such new creation threatens it. And it's the essence of stories like Frankenstein etc.

The essence of Frankenstein was about human nature. Specifically that we hate ugly things and love beautiful things even when the beautiful are evil and the ugly kind [1]. The only reason the creation wanted to destroy the creator was that the creation had no place in this world and was denied even a small amount of peace by the creator that condemned it to existence.

[1] When the beautiful doctor started working with dead bodies and so on, it was a "phase" he was going through. Not a bad person at all. When the monster saved a man's daughter from drowning he was shot for his trouble because something so ugly could only be evil.

Thank you for pointing out the common misunderstanding of the Frankenstein story.

It bugs me almost as much as all of the "Before Colombus, people thought the world was flat." repetition.

Indeed. Actually I was thinking as I wrote it about how any monopoly is essentially trying to extinguish the fertile ground that it first sprung from.

What word would fit instead - would 'ironic' be any less controversial?

> Hopefully, having a free (as in, non corporate controlled) internet will come to be seen as an important economic differentiator

Sorry to break it to you, but the internet is very corporate controlled. Its bits flow over the private networks of Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, etc. It's just that so far, these companies have not exercised the extent of their control.

And your car is powered by corporate gasoline. And Tim Berners-Lee was using a corporate NeXT box. There is still a degree of freedom that Internet provides, and it's our duty to keep it at the same level or greater.

They would love to, but they know that wouldn't work. Those companies (and many others in many different countries) control some of the possible mediums on top of which the Internet can sit. The Internet is a concept, not a bunch of cables and hardware, and that's what makes it so resilient. People would find a way.

Government controlled actually, as AT&T and Verizon are government protected monopolies. Much like the largest banks, they're merely an arm of the US Government pretending to be private.

And then when you examine eg China (arguably the largest Internet market), it too is completely government controlled.

This comment is a great example of what I call 'cynical/naive'. You're trying to be cynical but putting forward such a naive, simplified view of the interrelationships between those companies, the relevant regulatory bodies, legislators, local/state governments, lobbyists, market competition and lack thereof, steak dinners and whatever.

The tier 3 internet business of these corps is different from the consumer internet business. The consumer internet business's legal monopolies aren't so much an arm of a big federal government as they are completely dominant over thousands of very small local governments, where $50k of local access TV funding will buy you exclusivity because those governments have been squeezed for funding for the last 10 years.

It's also not really comparable to the way things work in China, except insofar as 'corruption and imperfections exist' in both cases.

Additionally many people share links (funny and otherwise) through Facebook. You can break out of Facebook by clicking on a link someone posts/

Part of the benefit of Facebook is that it's on the WWW.

Sure but a few problems with that:

a) WARNING you are leaving safety, are you sure you want to go out into the DANGEROUS Internet? Your friends will miss you! How about some Soma instead? b) Censorship c) They have the power to turn off hyperlinks at any time--like YouTube has already done.

Is that really a symptom of Facebook deliberately trying to wall its users in, or just that the the majority of its userbase really would get phished/infected/anally-probed without the warnings?

Then again .. I didn't know YouTube did that ..

Organic social shares drive real traffic, but everything I've spent on fb ads has been a complete loss and grossly underperformed all other internet mediums that I've tested.

Someone needs to get the goal posts moving over there...or wait, we have another newsfeed update for better photos --ads.

"platforms like Facebook never could arise without the free internet"

Word.

>So while this blog post makes a great point, it feels like it's trying to convince the sun not to rise tomorrow - nothing we do will stop platforms such as Facebook rising if they offer what people want/need. We would need to make a better version, and that isn't always feasible.

Well that's the thing with democracy and freedom in general.

It's not enough to vote. You have to be vigilant, and you have to be a political (as opposed to private) person.

That a platform like Facebook can swallow the internet if it "offers people what the want/need", means that people are not democratic (in the meaning of vigilant citizenry) enough. They are content with conveniences instead of asking for more control and freedom for them.

(I'm not talking about FSF style freedom either. I would be content with EFF style freedom).