I wouldn't be shocked if at some point we end up with a small number of large ecosystems overlaying the Internet which largely solve the underlying problem. Yo

I wouldn't be shocked if at some point we end up with a small number of large ecosystems overlaying the Internet which largely solve the underlying problem. You might be in Apple's ecosystem, and everything you do filters through that -- your voice communication, email, instant message, etc. Or you can have the Google equivalent. Or some other very large provider. They will agree to some kind of interoperability at their interface points, and then all the individuals and tiny Internet participants will be pushed into irrelevancy because they have no way to communicate. If there are enough, maybe they get together and build another ecosystem so they have enough clout to negotiate access to the others. It's possible we'll figure out how to keep our idealized anyone-can-get-on-it Internet, but I'm not counting on it.