> We are moving towards a model where the internet is dominated by a few centralized content providers and their walled gardens, and generated content may unfortunately make it even harder for grassroots online communities to survive and grow.
The author makes a good and fair analysis of the situation, yet I don't see how advocating for e-IDs is going to make the Internet a better place. This is a very ‘platform-focused’ critique that assume that the Internet tends toward more centralisation, where communities are packed together in massive platforms that regulate who communicates to whom and how.
Where do we see a need to regulate ‘fake news’ and artificially generated content? Facebook Pages? Twitter? Youtube? These are all hyper-global platforms focused on content monetization. On the other hand, local Facebook groups and the feed of your friends, Github repositories, Mastodon… may not face the same future. Maybe there's a lesson to learn here?