Can a line be a cat? I love kittens.

I don’t see how this could be prevented.

There are already many “small web” movements. With different proposals. Like gemini, sub-set of currently supported web standards (typically no-js, no-css, no POST, etc…)

But the monetized web is doomed to reach a point were it will be controlled in such a way that you will not be able to block ads, not be able to hide your pseudonymous identity.

I remember reading an article many years ago about the cat and mouse game between ads publishers and ad-blockers. The conclusion were that in the end, ads blocker will lose the final war. And with these kind of system we are closer and closer to reach it.

I think we need to collectively find a way to have sub-nets. For example declare that our website conform to certain sub-net properties.

• no-ads
• privacy (no cookie/no js/no user-agent header/no canvas, no css)
• etc…

The small webs are different for everyone. It would be very nice if we could put an HTML header that would list which small webs pattern this page is compatible with. And have a browser that would adapt to your preferences and also a way to filter your small-web preferences in search engine.

The closest to this we have today is probably gemini. But this a very small but friendly web. I am sure we could find other solutions to create an alternative “respecting his users” web.

“Do the right thing” in corporate speak generally means to obey some business conduct to prevent any risk for the company to be sued. Mainly, take care of interest conflicts. Do not personally contribute to hide such issue and there should even be an internal team taking care that if you tell the truth your managers could not retaliate.

Mainly, “Do the right thing” is about protecting Google. Not “Do the right thing for the world and strive for progress”.

Google stopped to try to create progress. Instead they just need innovation. This is what they are after. Innovation, not progress anymore.

The morons… Why use a computer if you don’t have full power?

But there are many EEE attempts by big players.

Microsoft Exchange is not entirely compatible with normal protocols in subtle ways to provide outlook-only features which makes it very difficult for me to use my preferred email client for my work emails. So I am naturally forced to use outllook while I hate it.

Gmail can easily mark any small and private email domain as spam making. And in fact there are many stories like these, where people stopped self hosting their email server to use a bigger player (and often pay for it) so their emails are seen. If gmail was smaller, they wouldn’t have so much power as forcing most people to not host email.

So the conclusion for me is not corporate vs free/FOSS. But more about preventing having too much power in a single instance which is why it is important not to let threads federate and take >90% of the content, participants, etc…