And while I loved old forums, they were constantly fighting with being underfunded, there was infighting between the "owners", and each one worked differently, making them a bunch of disconnected little silos.
Especially compared to Youtube, there's just NO WAY IN HELL any non-exploitative company could ever finance a project of even remotely similar scope. There are already, right know, alternatives for all the big monopolists. Most people aren't using them because they don't like the trade offs.
Yes, capitalist forces are incredibly strong, which is why we need regulation to avoid negative externalities to spiral out of control. Regulation that is intended to protect consumers often end up being moats for the monopolies to cement their monopolies even further, because the regulation is too heavy and expensive to comply with for the smaller competitors.
I think that child protection laws is an example of such regulation because it will impose a huge legal and financial risk on small sites and forums which were never part of the problem.
This is why I would rather go for regulation which more or less outlaws or severely limits the viability of the problematic business model. This could also backfire of course, but I believe it will be better even though many will find it inconvenient if YouTube disappeared.
And while I loved old forums, they were constantly fighting with being underfunded, there was infighting between the "owners", and each one worked differently, making them a bunch of disconnected little silos.
Especially compared to Youtube, there's just NO WAY IN HELL any non-exploitative company could ever finance a project of even remotely similar scope. There are already, right know, alternatives for all the big monopolists. Most people aren't using them because they don't like the trade offs.