By apps and centralized platforms I am referring to how most internet use happens in 2025. I get sent links to Meta properties or X and they are useless to me b

By apps and centralized platforms I am referring to how most internet use happens in 2025. I get sent links to Meta properties or X and they are useless to me because I don’t have those apps or even accounts on them. The majority of most peoples lives online are locked up and controlled by a few. Whereas anyone with any gopher client or IRC client could participate in any number of nets back then as equals. TBH I had forgotten about Compuserv or AOL, because at the time that was a walled garden for a different class of user, and private sites have always existed. Neither of which are really too relevant for the internet “built by our fathers” because I interpret that as the open, standards based internet that allowed all that innovation to take place