There are already far more people in raw numbers on various federated/non-commercial/self-hosted/indie web stuff than there ever were on the early web- it just takes a little effort to find it.

Isn't that how it started

They intend to tie a name to every keystroke

I am already browsing the "old way", since the mess with reddit...

I found out there is a forum for everything. It's not centralized in one website, but it's not that different than browsing /r/whatever you know.

More often than not, the discussions are more intelligent and on point too.

For my doom-scrolling needs, Lemmy does the job.

Sure but it would be trivial for a company to build profiles on people using public apps like Lemmy.

Google already changed logged out YouTube to a single row of recommendations and a button to login on roku and Android shield when it used to look like the logged in version just a couple weeks ago. Probably the kick I needed to get off, mostly just using it for a couple smaller call-in/debate streamers I can switch to a podcast or other version.

But not necessarily link it to your other accounts or real identity, which is the point.

Lol no it isn't.

People have killed for less

I gotta be honest I thought I’d never be able to quit Reddit. But it was a lot easier when I just did it. If this shit becomes the norm, I’ll back out of a site first time they try that shit and block the site. Maybe I’ll just have to stop using the internet. Wouldn’t that be a net positive on my life. You made me do this, capitalism.

Lemmy will be pressured into age verification also and most hosts will crumble. $50M per caught infraction is wild.

We gonna end up going back to libraries. Which actually would be cool as fuck. Like Yentl when all those dudes are hanging out in a big ass room talking philosophy. It'll re-spark the postal service. Live music will thrive. Coz everyone will be like fuck the internet, we'll do it live.

You made me do this, capitalism.

This is a problem with Government not an economic system. It's about control, not dollars, pounds, or yuan.

That won’t matter when everything becomes paywalled.

decentralized apps, fediverse

Those apps and / or the fediverse itself would get sued into the ground and shut down one app or server at a time. There's nothing stopping any Governments authorities from going after servers inside their borders and there's nothing stopping them from "harmonizing" identity verification restrictions among other countries. They've already done it once with Intellectual Property law.

This push to de-anonymize the Internet isn't new either. Microsoft started this back in the oughts with their Passport / Digital-ID program. Google and Meta, along with others, long ago launched their own versions and it's why you can sign into so many websites with a Google or Facebook account.

It's generally referred to as IdP and now that the Internet has been fully corporatized, with minor holdouts, you can bet your bippy that the days of anonymous access are ending.

You'd need to decentralize the Internet itself. Good luck with that one...

And when some data is leaked, your id will be with it.

Unless you are one of the extreme privacy people, like deep into freakaziod territory, the folks who build tracking / id systems would maybe need an afternoon to go from your Lemmy username to your home address and underwear size.

Why do you assume that the old school forums are going to get exempted? They are going to get on the bus or get run over by it just like everywhere else. Government has already proven that they can, and will, regulate those forums.

What do you mean by that? Most of the infrastructure that makes up the internet is owned by like 6 companies.

Many fediverse hosts will make an effort to stay open by shifting their servers to countries that are out of reach of verification and law enforcement but that will only last so long.

But this scene was set by capitalism. The family friendly, market friendly internet is the basis for this entire issue. Yeah, government is the one finally pulling the trigger on sanctioned, total control, but we’ve been surveilled and profiled and censored for decades at this point by countless corporations for ad dollars. We’ve gone through the cycles of outrage and acquiescence and outrage and acquiescence as things have gotten worse and worse—same goes for the quality of politician, all bought and paid for by telecom companies neutering everything we can do to make the market and internet more favorable while the politicians got worse and worse and we began accepting it and just laughing it off.

And here we are. Don’t be fooled, this is 100% at the feet of capitalism.