The article defines social networks as being the media silos of facebook, slack, discord, and newsletters. I'd argue that in the case of facebook, it's no long

The article defines social networks as being the media silos of facebook, slack, discord, and newsletters. I'd argue that in the case of facebook, it's no longer really a social network. And in the case or newsletters it depends. However, if we focus on slack and discord, the important part of slack and discord that make them 'social networks' is missing from the open web and here's why: Social networks are composed of links (dyads), so an extension to the web makes sense, but search engines, web crawlers, and even 'browsers' break those links as holding value as a dyad. I might know about your website, but I don't hold any special access, or privileged relationship to that site. Anybody browsing through can see the same content and have the same access. With slack and discord, access is limited to those with a specific relationship to the poster. The same is true of newsletters, but in those cases it can be just a consumer relationship, whereas in slack and discord the relationship is bi-directional. In actuality, the article is arguing for the absence of a social network, a completely open network. That's a fine argument, but it's unlikely that most people want to share every aspect of their lives with the entire world, so the need for closed social networks will continue.