>You mean the open web of ICQ, Skype, AOL's walled garden? There were open-source clients that connected to all of them. Accounts were easy to register and did

>You mean the open web of ICQ, Skype, AOL's walled garden? There were open-source clients that connected to all of them. Accounts were easy to register and didn't have draconian verification. The IMs of the old we used for actual communication and social interaction, instead of some synthetic nonsense that's designed to leak as much of your personal info as possible. >Even though chrome is basically the only major browser left, almost all content you browse today is written in to an open standard. Google has far more control over web standards now than Microsoft ever had in the 90s-00s. It's just that they are much better at presenting themselves as the good guys who act in public interest.