What you’re missing is the comforting certainty that there’s Somebody In Charge. And that this Somebody cares about you, cares about the money they can make off of you, and certainly cares about the ‘content’ you’re producing for them so that they can both mine you and others for precious, precious moneybucks and sell you to their advertisers.

Well, sorry to break it to you, but there are Many Someones In Charge and no one–not anyone–literally no one at all–can tell them all what to do.

Ever hear the expression about herding cats?

That’s the decentralized anarchy at the heart of all of this, and what makes it work is communities talking with each other openly, and being able to disassociate from communities that do not suit them–or that might be actively destructive to them.