A cute little froggy sits inside a pot and doesn’t notice as the water boils it. This is the modern web. Owned by billionaires and conglomerates. They will take you in promising to stay ‘open’, ‘free’, and ‘democratic.’ Over time people’s trust in these entities increases and many come to rely on them… only for them to screw people the moment they step out of line.

What you do doesn’t matter. It could be an automated system that gets abused… or perhaps something more insidious like deciding certain political beliefs constitute ‘trolling.’ The provider gets to say what is ‘acceptable.’ And as long as a person shares the same values everything goes okay. But occasionally… Something happens. Then you realize that everything you ‘had’ was just an illusion.

You never had a choice. You never had control over your ‘account’, your ‘data’, or ‘services.’ You were being kept inside a pen. The funny thing is. If the platform ever does anything bad (like loosing all your data which happens all the time) they’ll get a fine and go on their merry way. But you have zero recourse for being screwed over yourself.

Welcome to the ‘free’ web in 2023. Destination: you.