Wikipedia is a great example of a web site that has resisted the trend! It is a pretty ideal democracy for those of us whose ISP or nation-state[0] doesn't prohibit us from viewing it.

There was a project similar to Wikipedia, but for semantic data. It lasted for a little while before being swallowed up by Google and shut down[1]. Granted there are some alternatives, but after investing some time working with freebase data, I should be allowed to hold a grudge.

Google played a key role in muzzling more widespread usage of RSS[2], along with Twitter and Facebook discontinuing support for it. Similarly, jabber[3], XMPP[4].

These days it's risky to even host your own mail server, since most people you correspond with are likely to use one particular email service that may arbitrarily block messages from lesser-known mail services[5].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia

[1] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/freebase-discuss/WEn...

[2] https://www.fastcompany.com/3013890/reader-may-have-died-to-...

[3] https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/a/2006/use-twitter-by-instant... (couldn't easily find press of the discontinuation of this service)

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9266769

[5] https://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/archives/2019/04/google_i...