Nah, it’s about Tarnoff’s brand of internet Marxism and how commercialization has driven a subsumption of “labor” (basically internet users) at all levels, shaping the internet we use today. At the application layer, he’s talking about how user-generated content arose as an internet-native thing to be profited from—in the early days, storefronts weren’t as profitable as eBay. Website authors compete for placement in Google’s search results, feeding Google’s ad empire. At the infra layer, he’s talking about how backbones are designed around delivering commercial content ubiquitously rather than connecting communities.

Tarnoff thinks there’s an alternative where you connect to your local library’s social network through your local ISP coop to see what your neighbors are up to.