The internet used to be limitless, open to anyone with an idea. Now, it’s a polished prison run by tech giants. Is this the future we signed up for? Here’s how Big Tech quietly turned freedom into captivity.
Remember when the internet felt infinite? When every click could lead to something wild, wonderful, and new? Those days are dying.
Today's internet is a cage. Sure, it's bigger than ever - but we're trapped in digital zoos built by tech giants. Google. Facebook. Amazon. Apple. Microsoft. They've carved up the web into their private empires, each one a glossy prison of convenience.
The untamed digital frontier where anyone could build the next big thing is all but gone. Instead, we shuffle between prescribed platforms, our choices funneled through corporate filters, our creativity confined to pre-approved templates. We traded freedom for comfort, exploration for ease-of-use.
This isn't just nostalgia talking. It's about power. While we scroll through sanitized feeds and click through curated content, a handful of companies are quietly reshaping humanity's digital destiny. The real question is: are we okay with letting them?
The Rise of Walled Gardens
Think about your last hour online. Odds are you bounced between platforms controlled by Google, TikTok, Amazon, and Microsoft like a pinball in their proprietary machine. These five tech behemoths now swallow up 43% of all web traffic - nearly half the internet's pulse flowing through their servers. A decade ago? They only controlled 17%. This isn't just market dominance. It's an empire-building speedrun, with your attention as the prize.
As these companies have grown (and grown, and grown) they’ve actively encouraged users to remain within their digital walls, creating “sticky” ecosystems where everything a user needs—social connections, shopping, content—is available without ever leaving.
Software engineer André Staltz points out,
“People are increasingly moving from the open web into closed apps and services like Facebook, Google, and Amazon.”
And closed is exactly the right word.
It’s been a gradual digital migration: users are leaving the open, uncharted internet for highly managed, algorithmically optimized experiences.
(gag) Meta now provides a closed-but-connected platform not just for social networking but also for news, shopping, and even online dating. Amazon, starting as an online retailer, has evolved into an ecosystem where consumers can access streaming services, smart home management, cloud hosting and even medical consultations. These walled gardens have become destinations where users find comfort, convenience, and familiarity, but at a massive cost - the broader web’s diversity and openness.
The Decline of the Open Web
The open web has shrunk. It’s grown smaller and smaller.
In 2012, the open web still mattered, with only 31% of all web traffic directed toward the top 1 million sites. But by 2022, that number had risen to 57%, a figure that indicates a significant narrowing of our internet experiences. Fewer individuals and companies than ever invest in building independent websites or exploring beyond major platforms.
Staltz notes,
“The web is dying. Most of the top 1 million sites are run by a handful of companies.”
What Staltz and others are observing is a rapid concentration of power and influence, where a few companies dominate the majority of our online activity, limiting the broader ecosystem’s vitality. This trend doesn’t only affect users’ browsing habits; it impacts the core fabric of what the internet was designed to be. The web was intended to be an open, universally accessible platform that empowered users, innovators, and creators alike. And as it becomes more closed and controlled, the essence of the web as an expansive space of ideas and perspectives is fading away.
For the average internet user, the implications of this decline are more than theoretical. As platforms like Facebook and Google become the primary gateways to information, users unknowingly limit their worldview to what these platforms choose to prioritize, driven by algorithms focused on engagement over comprehensiveness.
Independent sites (cough, Westenberg, cough) who don’t have the resources to compete with major platforms in visibility and search rankings, lose traffic and, consequently, viability. As a result, entire categories of information and smaller communities become less accessible, hidden behind the algorithms of the dominant, bloated tech giants.
Implications for Innovation and Competition
And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it?
Competing with massive, data-rich platforms like Google and (gag) Meta is nearly impossible for smaller players who lack the financial resources to capture users’ attention and keep them engaged. As a result, innovation—the lifeblood of the early internet—faces a steady constriction.
Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, warned:
“The web was supposed to be an open platform that anybody could build on. But over time, it’s become controlled by a few big companies.”
His vision of an open platform was one where anyone, regardless of background or resources, could contribute to the web’s growth. In the current landscape, startups face higher barriers to entry, forced to rely on platforms they do not control, often with prohibitive costs or restrictions.
While walled gardens offer these smaller players a route to reach users, they also trap them in ecosystems where the terms of engagement are set by giant fucking corporations, limiting the freedom to innovate independently.
This concentrated power not only dampens creativity it clamps down on consumer choice. With fewer players in the market, users have less variety in services and products. Major platforms dictate what features are available, which content is promoted, and even how users interact with one another. They control every aspect of our speech.
The result is a standardized internet experience across these platforms, decimating the richness that once characterized the open web. Consumers may believe they are choosing freely within these ecosystems, but in reality, they are selecting from a narrow range of options preordained by the platform.
The Future of the Internet
The trajectory of the internet under walled gardens should make it obvious that we’re heading toward a future where the internet is entirely closed, where proprietary platforms dominate everything. That future would make the early internet dreamers bow their heads in shame. In this steadily approaching version of the internet, the diversity of content, viewpoints, and creators will be subjugated to the homogeneity of a handful of corporations, and the idea of an open, user-controlled internet will be nothing more than a memory.
Chris Dixon, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (I know, I know), aptly described the shift:
“The web is being consumed by apps that use the internet for transport but not the browser for display.”
This trend underscores a shift from the open web, where websites were freely accessible via browsers, to an app-driven internet where access is controlled by platform owners. The platform mafia are creating closed circuits of information and interaction, limiting the use of the broader web. Users now interact with digital content through controlled environments that desperately want to look like open canvases but, in reality, are tightly regulated.
If this shit is left unchecked, the consolidation of internet power into the hands of a few companies will fundamentally reshape who we are online.
As Vint Cerf, often called one of the “fathers of the Internet,” warned,
“Walled gardens may seem attractive, but we must remember that walls are also used to keep people in, as well as out.”
Cerf’s words touch on the critical paradox of walled gardens: yes, they offer an immediate sense of security and convenience, but they also actively and poisonously fuck with our freedom and eradicate our spirit of exploration, trapping us in a limited, sterile, segregated version of the internet.
The fundamental values of openness, innovation, and user empowerment that made the web revolutionary are under threat.
Existential, deliberate threat.
As more of our digital interactions are funnelled through these walled gardens, we are creating an internet that is constrained, predictable, and monolithic.
Silicon Valley's chokehold isn't just reshaping our habits - it's gutting the internet's soul. The web was born as digital democracy: raw, open, infinite. A universe where anyone could build, create, and connect without permission.
Now we're all just tenants in Big Tech's digital dystopia. Every click, every creation, every conversation flows through their pipes. They're not just controlling traffic - they're rewriting the internet's DNA, turning a wild frontier of human potential into a corporate shopping mall.
This isn't evolution. It's extinction - the death of the free web by a thousand convenient clicks.
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