Folks felt much the same in the CompuServe, AOL and MSN days where the aforementioned big wigs had a complete monopoly on what most people saw online. In fact

Folks felt much the same in the CompuServe, AOL and MSN days where the aforementioned big wigs had a complete monopoly on what most people saw online. In fact during the 90s it really felt like there was no technological future possible beyond what Microsoft saw fit. They would literally buy out, copy and crush every upstart who had even moderate success in the technology sector. Never know where the future will take us, or indeed where we (techies) will take it. For all we know the next what.cd might be something far beyond its current incarnation (a distributed Spotify + Slack/IRC on steroids - anyone's guess!)