Not sure about people never hearing about them, but the internet is no longer a network of sparsely distributed connected machines hosting and consuming content as it was originally designed. The content is all hosted on very small set of networks controlled by just a few companies -- Amazon AWS, Google, MS Azure, etc. The consumers access the internet through clients that are also controlled by these companies, and so it's easy for them to exclude other networks and hosts even though the network specification is technically "open".
personal email failed because email is a flawed system that was initially designed to work in a trusted environment free of bad actors
I'm as worried about massive platforms playing gatekeepers as much as the next guy, but it's also fairly clear to see that any service that isn't constantly moderated will be overcome with a flood of malicious crap. it practically guarantees closed platforms will proliferate
Every platform that has an controlled access point, which to be clear is the entirety of the public DNS system, is by default a closed platform
There do not exist open HTTPS gateways for all of the major internet services such that anyone can connect - They’re *all* mediated by some access control gatekeeper, it’s like one of the core functions of the current Internet routing system is to not allow for infinite anonymous peers like you would see in TOR or other anonymized routing services
You can say that this should be the case or not but it’s just the facts
It’s precisely the same argument as: “We have plenty of water fountains, As long as you look white then you can use them all you want.”
Not sure about people never hearing about them, but the internet is no longer a network of sparsely distributed connected machines hosting and consuming content as it was originally designed. The content is all hosted on very small set of networks controlled by just a few companies -- Amazon AWS, Google, MS Azure, etc. The consumers access the internet through clients that are also controlled by these companies, and so it's easy for them to exclude other networks and hosts even though the network specification is technically "open".