I tend to have a sinking feeling whenever this topic comes up because there's a lot of religious fervor around federation in particular that is completely divor

I tend to have a sinking feeling whenever this topic comes up because there's a lot of religious fervor around federation in particular that is completely divorced from reality and practicality. But, the section of this on federation is remarkably level-headed and pragmatic. It's not a panacea and it creates a lot of friction and new problems that otherwise wouldn't exist. And this is before you get into the benefits for the end-user, which are typically none. The profit motive will always build a wall--technically, operationally--or an "enclosure", if you will, legislatively or politically. The only ones committed to "openness" or "open source" or "open access" are those who have already lost in the marketplace, which is why people say things like "open source is for losers" [1]. If we look at what works it's collective ownership eg Wikipedia. As another commenter shrewdly noted, this is a political not a technical problem. It's about the workers relationship to the means of production. It's who gets to capture ("exploit") the value created. And that's not a political statement. It's just materialist analysis. But people don't want to hear that because they see themselves as future bag-holders and collective ownership threatens their ability to one day be at the top of the ladder, even though (most likely) they'll never be at the top of the ladder. [1]: https://siliconangle.com/2014/05/29/only-loser-vendors-are-truly-committed-to-open-source/ https://siliconangle.com/2014/05/29/only-loser-vendors-are-t...