The narrative for the last few years, at least in the mainstream media, is that Google Facebook Twitter Microsoft et al. are too big for anyone else to replace them. It's the old "inevitability" argument - if your new thing gets too big, they'll just buy you up.
Let's hope people continue to try to create services that a big percentage of people use and then resist to sell to the big data companies.
This probably won't be a popular opinion, but it seems like Google/Facebook/etc are entrenched too deeply in this incarnation of the web to be displaced any time soon.
They seem to understand where they are too - it goes beyond just buying out competitors. Look at Facebook's Internet Lite plan for India.
In the short term, you are likely right. But do you remember the days when some folks thought society might not need anything more than CompuServe, prodigy, earthling.net, aol? Long term I am hopeful about decentralization.
I'd definitely like to think so - and in practice, I've done more of running my own infrastructure recently. But what about those who're stuck under capped internet plans? What about the people whose interest in computing begins and ends with owning a smartphone?
At the moment, just an old desktop running HTTP/SSH/IRC functionality, and a 1U server I have modified for fitting full size (as in like, the huge, foot-long) PCI cards; mostly for the goofy projects I do in my spare time. It is a hardened machine though, and should be capable of running a few daemons if it comes down to it.
EDIT: I should mention I'm on satellite internet (there's quite literally no options for broadband where I live. I will, however, use my phone line for SSH via dial-up occasionally), so it's probably not very practical to run SMTP. For that, I have a Fastmail account.
At the time, computing didn't have the market penetration it has today. In other words, even if IBM and Microsoft had 99.9% of the market (which they had not), it didn't matter because only a tiny part of the population had computers at home and even less so in their pockets. Today's internet penetration is way bigger, almost anyone at least in the West has either a phone, laptop, tablet or desktop with a way to access Google and Facebook. Won't just go away as easily.
Definitely can't disagree :) . I've had my reservations about the direction of the internet before, but a Facebook walled garden internet just sounds plain scary. Or worthless.
I loved the web in the early mid-2000s. Web 2.0 so many startups, so many ideas, so many failures. It was great. Lots more hope than what is out there right now.
It reminds me of early 20th century footage of barnstorming aircraft inventors. Now it's just Boeing and Airbus and precious little in the way of real innovation.
Let's hope people continue to try to create services that a big percentage of people use and then resist to sell to the big data companies.