The natural mechanics of network-based markets inherently lead to dominant players in search, social media, and browsers. This erodes the web's initial decentralized promise of "digital sovereignty" for individual users and creators.
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Despite a wave of new AI-powered browsers from companies like OpenAI, nearly all are built on Google's Chromium engine. This stifles deep innovation and competition at the web's foundational layer, creating a monoculture with an illusion of choice.
Platforms grew dominant by acquiring competitors, a direct result of failed antitrust enforcement. Cory Doctorow argues debates over intermediary liability (e.g., Section 230) are a distraction from the core issue: a decades-long drawdown of anti-monopoly law.
The idea of a truly "open web" was a brief historical moment. Powerful, proprietary "organizing layers" like search engines and app stores inevitably emerge to centralize ecosystems and capture value. Today's AI chatbots are simply the newest form of these organizing layers.
Dominant tech platforms lack the market incentive to open their ecosystems. Berners-Lee argues that government intervention is the only viable path to mandate interoperability and break down digital walled gardens, as market forces alone have failed.
The internet democratizes consumption but consolidates production, meaning everyone remembers Apple but not Samsung's founder, Usain Bolt but not the silver medalist. The gap between #1 and #2 is infinite fame versus obscurity. In content-driven markets, the only rational strategy is to aim for being "insanely great," not just "good."
AI favors incumbents more than startups. While everyone builds on similar models, true network effects come from proprietary data and consumer distribution, both of which incumbents own. Startups are left with narrow problems, but high-quality incumbents are moving fast enough to capture these opportunities.
Tim Berners-Lee warns that as AI summarizes content and performs tasks for users, people will stop visiting websites directly. This breaks the flow of traffic and ad revenue that sustains countless online publishers and content creators.
The economic incentives and audience reach on platforms like TikTok or YouTube now outweigh the benefits of building an independent website, a stark reversal from a decade ago when the open web was the only choice for new media ventures.
Social influence has become even more concentrated in the hands of a few. While the 'super spreader' phenomenon has always existed for ideas and diseases, modern technology dramatically enhances their power by increasing their reach and, crucially, making them easier for others to identify and target.
