The major problems that users are faced with internet social network services are related to the fact that identities, network and resource access are restricted by centralized entities which have every incentive to limit user choice while maximizing the value of those users, even at the expense of the well-being of the users. In fact, the users are actually the product that behaviourally manipulated and served up to the highest bidder.

In the early internet of the 90's there was a promise, a dream, that the internet would provided democratized access to information and allow anyone, anywhere to connect with each other. Services such as IRC and Usenet emerged that seemed to have the potential to transform the world. Indeed they did transform the world, for a time being. Problems arose with the costs of operations and maintenance of those systems.

Centralized entities emerged to take advantage of the arbitrage opportunity presented by the shear costs of those decentralized systems. The weight of those systems was too much to bear for the system admins and community volunteers and innovation stagnated. The field was ripe for disruption by those whom became the tech giants of today. Facebook recognized the value of real-world connections form a social graph and richer media experiences in a structure way which appealed to the masses. Others such as MySpace allowed people to organize their pages around their interests and build a fan base. The power of owning the digital identities and social graph around these services have been extremely lucrative.

Fast forward to today and we have essentially "channelized" the internet across different segments: "Family and Friends" (Facebook), "News" (X formerly Twitter), "Photos channel" (Instagram), etc. Behind each "channel" exists a centralized entity which owns the digital identities and social graph behind their users. In the vast majority, really in all, of the services the incentives of the companies behind those services is completely at odds of the interests of their users. Billions of dollars are spent optimizing techniques to make their users addictive, to get "reactions" even at the expense of the emotional and financial well-being of their users. The financially well-being of the companies fundamentally depends on extracting as much financial, emotional, and *spiritual* value from their users.

How much of the internet social media networks employees are truly needed if they did not need to invent new ways of extracting value directly out of their users? What if the only thing they had to do was to ensure the system scaled, and that users and developers could freely develop whatever they wanted? How many of those employees and resources would still be needed then?