"The internet has existed as a decentralized network since ARPANET in the 1970s. The first internet communities began on a system called USENET, it’s not heavily used today, imagine prehistoric reddit or internet forums."
"The biggest drawback of any hosted solution is lack of freedom, and the potential for censorship. Not just for controversial content, sometimes major platforms make mistakes. Scaled moderation is almost always heavily automated, robots are not excellent judges of context and character."
" In 1989, the World Wide Web was invented by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee, and quickly took off, leading to the internet boom of the 1990s. The WWW is a real wild west, a real embodiment of the First Amendment. "
"Heading into the 2010s, platforms became increasingly relevant, and the open web less so. Internet forums gave way to subreddits, a centralized system controlled by a single for-profit corporation, Reddit, Inc."