Douglas Adams wrote in The Salmon of Doubt about the universe that a puddle perceives.
This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact, it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.
This is how I think of why the open-source and the open web is an ethical and natural choice. It is largely about time.
The open web and internet is the default! Has always been since its inception.
There will always be people who will want to colonize and occupy it with walled gardens. But those walls will crumble over time and maybe their ruins will remain.
But the commons will win and prevail! It has time on its side – if it survives it wins.