When open is closed

With the topical title of It's the end of the web as we know it, designer/developer Adrian Short has laid into the landgrab that is currently the preserve of multinational social networks:

You can turn your back on the social networks that matter in your field and be free and independent running your own site on your own domain. But increasingly that freedom is just the freedom to be ignored, the freedom to starve. We need to use social networks to get heard and this forces us into digital serfdom. We give more power to Big Web companies with every tweet and page we post to their networks while hoping to get a bit of traffic and attention back for ourselves. The open web of free and independent websites has never looked so weak.

Do read. It's a unrelenting piece which argues that the future of the "open web" is bleak, and that your identity will be held by private companies - there's no need to mention who they are here - and that their holding your identity will become an increasing part of your existence, online or otherwise.

(ht various)