Complain all you want about the monopolists, and I do think you're right to do so, but a lot of their power comes from and is aimed at defeating the overwhelming flood of spam.
replyMail, then emails, then home phones, then cell phones, then texts, then social media have been gradually rendered less and less usable by bad actors systematically abusing every single tool we try to use to communicate with one another to steal from us, lie to us, and manipulate our beliefs, and we'll just keep inventing and discarding new ways of communicating until we reckon with this.
With cheaper AI classification models coming out every day now, the spam problem is on the cusp of basically being solved in every communication channel.
replyThe only question is how many years the lazy network-effects monopolies (like Google, Microsoft, Verizon, etc) will hold this back from happening.
The optimist in me says this will unlock pathways to true decentralization of push communication protocols (like SMTP) instead of only have decentralization of pull-oriented protocols (like HTTP).
On the contrary, with cheaper AI generation the spam problem becomes harder by the day.
replyI don't think anyone believes it will "singlehandedly free us from tyranny", it's one component for a healthy ecosystem.
replyDecentralization is not a bulletproof solution. It is a mitigation. Until someone gets 50 percent of market share. Then they can run havoc on the ecosystem with their own customized system.
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