• Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    How would you have communicated without someone owning a server and paying for it? Reddit and other centralized platforms emerged for some reason… You would have to literally make that illegal, i.e. make it illegal to host your own server and let users use it.

    You can’t just imagine some fantasy utopia, and compare that to the current system.

    • space_comrade [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      How would you have communicated without someone owning a server and paying for it?

      You do realize the Internet first started being used by universities and the military, not the private sector, right? I see literally no reason why Internet infrastructure couldn’t be publicly owned. It could function pretty much like any other public utility.

      • Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        And would it have grown into more than that? Into something that everyone, and not just military and scientists can use?

        • space_comrade [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Why not?

          Sorry I just don’t buy into the ideology that the free market has this kind of “magic sauce” that makes everything innovative and better.

          The early Internet was filled of people doing all kinds of cool things for free just because it was interesting to do, the only thing the private sector did is provide the base infrastructure, this is something the state can easily do too. All kinds of communities, FOSS software and media popped up and none of them had VC funding or expected any money out of it.

          It was only in mid-late 2000 that capital really sank its teeth into the Internet properly.