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Claiming Web1 was “truly open” because the access costs were hidden upstream of browser sessions is a bit like European countries claiming progress by outsourcing heavy manufacturing to coal-burning China. Openness and low/free cost of access do not have a simple relationship.
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Openness is a function of who *controls* access, not what it *costs* to access. National parks are open to the public. Even when they don’t charge entrance, you pay for roads with taxes and cars with private $. The ocean is free. You can swim there. I recommend paying for a boat.
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I don’t think people are setting out to make flawed comparisons. Unless you’ve been in tech for long enough that parsing illegible cost pictures becomes second nature, you’ll miss things and fall prey to sloganeering.
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I still think “if you’re not paying you’re the product” was a deeply disingenuous attack on Web2 by a privileged bunch of Web1 early adopters who acted like everybody should have the technical and financial ability to oat for ad-free Mastodon servers.
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I ran a Mastodon server for a couple of years ( runs it now). It was non-trivial work+cost. I’d rather “be the product” and click on the occasional ad (odd btw how a Web2 virtue, paying do you’re not the product, is suddenly a Web3 vice?) for bigger public spaces.
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Web2 replaced Web1 because it genuinely created more openness for more people at lower cost than Web1 ever did. All while weathering criticism from Web1 mavens fetishizing USENET and The Well. Now Web2 mavens are doing it to Web3. Eventually Web3 mavens will do it to Web4 🤣
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This thread is now too big and unwieldy. I might stop it simply because it's too big, and start a new thread with a clearer Chapter 2 quest to it. Open to suggestions on what to do with it. I don't have the energy to transform it into longform rn.
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Replying to
Also re climate angle, I wonder if there's been any DAO energies around buying land / coal mines to retire / forests? That seems like a natural fit if there's continued kickstarter constitutionDAO type energies
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