"The Net is born free, but everywhere is in chains. This is a parody of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 1762 book The Social Contract where he said the same about humans, but it's nonetheless true. The Net is built out of open, free protocols and open, free code. Yet it and we are bound by the rulemakers who build the services and set the laws of the places we go and the things that we do, not to our advantage."
"Unintended consequences can make enemies of good ideas. One such is "Like it or fork it." There's lots in modern browsers that people don't like, which is unsurprising with all that tasty personal data flowing through them. So people fork them. They remove the parts they don't like and bolster the bits that they do. Which is such a good idea, there are now hundreds of them."
The Net originated from open protocols and free code but is constrained by the rulemakers who build services and set laws, producing outcomes that disadvantage users. Open-source forking of browsers responds to disliked features and data-harvesting, but proliferation creates uncertainty about authorship, security, maintenance, and popularity, so forking alone fails as a solution. Just the Browser proposes removing objectionable behaviors and applying enterprise-style policies to give individuals control and a mainstream browser that respects personal space. Data harvesting, AI perversity, misdirection, and hoops deepen user overwhelm, driving nostalgia and interest in a simpler Small Web.
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