Funnily, this is an idea that keeps recurring. I talked with a would-be founder circa 1999 who wanted a discussion sidebar for every website. He too was excited

Funnily, this is an idea that keeps recurring. I talked with a would-be founder circa 1999 who wanted a discussion sidebar for every website. He too was excited about wresting control of the experience of a site from the site's owners. My memory is kinda fuzzy here, but I think this is what the idea turned into: https://web.archive.org/web/20000301142549/http://www.shoptok.com/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20000301142549/http://www.shopto... It looks like it went from being a global community (which raises lots of questions, both the ones you mention and things like who moderates it) to something with a much clearer revenue model, one where companies pay for add-on forums. And then blew up at the same time Bubble 1.0 did. The fact that people keep trying this but that we still don't have it makes me suspect there are fundamental flaws, but I've been wrong about that before.