About this: "The 1990s had a word for being trapped inside a manipulative notion of human contact: AOL. Facebook and its ilk are the rebirth of that limited vi

About this: "The 1990s had a word for being trapped inside a manipulative notion of human contact: AOL. Facebook and its ilk are the rebirth of that limited vision." Okay, but the tone is critical, so let's ask the question, if this limited vision is somehow a bad thing, why have we seen it for 30 years? If it was there at the beginning of the Web, and it is here now that the Web is mature, then there must be something compelling about "this limited vision." Keep in mind, I was a huge fan of the original blogosphere of 2000-2008, and I was sad when it was killed off with the emergence of Facebook and Twitter. My first startup, from 2002-2008, was originally focused on weblog tools, before we moved onto ecommerce tools. But, again, the question needs to be faced, why did people find Facebook more interesting that the blogosphere, and why did decentralized attempts at social networks (such as FOAF, Friend Of A Friend) fail to take off, despite a lot of hype from all the major dev personalities? Merely whining about the way the world is doesn't really help anyone. Instead of complaining about "this limited vision" it would be helpful to see more essays about why, exactly, people continue to choose limited walled-gardens. Why don't more people want to see some wider vision fulfilled? Why don't more people explore more widely? Why don't more people take out there wallet and spend more money for the kind of independent content that, in theory, they might want to see?