I often see people musing about how the web used to be so much better two decades ago, and while I don't disagree...

I think it's important to realize that we're remembering the *good* parts of the web back then; the parts that provided us with community and a sense of togetherness.

But there was widespread corporate meddling in communities back then, too. There was plenty of co-opting going on, too. There were a ton of unsustainable exploitative tech companies too - that's what the dotcom bubble *was*. Even the oft-lauded things like webrings often had commercial encroachment going on.

What made the web good back then wasn't the absence of shitty corporations. It was people building and finding community *in spite of* shitty corporations and hostile environments.

Yes, there's a subtly different set of problems on the web today. But what really makes the situation different isn't that the environment is more hostile now; it's that people have, by and large, given into it.

The way we fix the web is not by musing about former greatness, or by trying to replicate old protocols. We fix the web by *taking* it back, and that goes well beyond "being on the fediverse". It means taking on a subversive attitude towards the established systems again, and deliberately not playing along with them, in every way we can.

And, ultimately, making it so that we don't *need* corporations anymore to keep communities alive, make them obsolete. And hopefully fix things for the long term, this time. And yes, that is going to involve anti-capitalism somewhere along the way.

The fediverse is a good first step. But it is only that. And now it is time to organize further.