What's Old Is New Again
“Forums will be destroyed by Blogs,” they said. “Forums are doomed.”
“Blogs will be destroyed by Twitter!”
“Twitter is doomed! Mastodon is the future.”
“Mastodon will be destroyed by Bluesky!”
That all of these things continue to exist in some form is instantly forgotten
In a similar vein, IRC will probably outlive Discord. And while Usenet may be a shadow of its former self, I would argue that NNTP (NewNews Transport Protocol) is used even more today, albeit mostly under the radar.
Gopher may not have succeeded, but its spirit lives on in the Gemini protocol.
The Internet was built on openness and collaboration. Sure, corporations have played a part as well, but their efforts to corral the Internet to serve themselves and not users are folly. History shows that corporations are as mortal as we are, no amount of magical thinking can change that. But the knowledge of the hackers, tinkerers and dreamers will endure.
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