Once upon a time there was the Open Web. Then the Enclosures started.

Online dating websites were among the first. All user profiles were on the servers of a single company. Want to exchange messages with other people? Sign up and pay.

Then somebody closed off a hosting service for photography enthusiasts; a bulletin board geared to university students; and then a microblogging platform, and so on.

The only difference is that these services were kept free of charge. You sign up, add friends and people you want to follow, and you exchange photos, ideas and messages. Everything you do is tracked. You are the product that will be sold to advertisers.

I never understood the widespread enthusiasm for social media. Aren't social media simply the enclosure and privatisation of the Open Web in the quest for profits?

Similarly, both Apple iOS and Google Android, with their vast ecosystems of apps, are walled gardens. It's especially bad in the case of Android: Publish news in Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages format, and you rank higher in Google's search results. [1]