Comment by dalbasal

>> Repeating the negative generalisations over and over can contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Very true, but it's also treacherous to go blindly in the opposite direction. We need to be capable of both modes of thought... even if they contradict occasionally.

Interoperability definitely has the potential to "save." It's very good to have someone focus in on that with optimism and conviction. OTOH, we also need to remember that there are (or at least may be) other factors at play.

At this point, "freeing the web" likely entails bankrupting FB and Google. Their ad businesses just do not work without dominant market share, control over user data and such. See Twitter, Bing, reddit, etc. They don't have pro rata earnings relative to the big boys.

Can Google and Facebook fail, without causing disaster, political mitigation efforts, recession, etc? I'm not saying this to contradict the arguments, just pondering the scale of the task at hand.

I think a usable middle road might be to focus on interoperability's direct, first order achievables... not the big picture. What, in the most practical and down to earth terms, can be achieved by and achievable step in the interoperability direction.