All the people today saying the internet and content wouldnt survive without advertising and payments and some of us remember that actually the internet and content came first, then the corporations and profit seekers arrived. everyone was originally just excited to get their stuff out there and talk to other people who were passionate and knowledgeable about their stuff as well. then the corps, advertisers, seos came.
sharers -> profit seekers
remember when uber was supposed to be about being able to car share on your way to and from work and cut down on car use?
sharers -> profit seekers
remember when airbnb was about being able to share your home with someone else while you were away at someone else's so you wouldn't have to pay for hotels?
sharers -> profit seekers
remember when hackers were people who set up share drives in university halls with free music and movies, fighting for open access to books and software and info and publications? now we have saas, Steve jobs bios and hacker news is run by a startup venture capitalist firm...
i wonder what the next thing they can destroy will be...
i guess if the pattern repeats look for anything anywhere people are sharing or doing something of value amongst each other for free. they will climb on board try to expand the audience and swamp out the signal of the original community and change the narrative to entrepreneurship and making money from this was always the point, then they will lock it down with network effects and strap on parasitic payments or revenue streams, then they will optimise until they destroy the original with universal enshitification.
thinking emoji