[lukeschwartz]

Isn't it an issue of the entire model though. The Web is free, as in you pay with your data. The Web can be completely free for you and a number of others as long as enough people are actually paying with their data (to offset you et al.,).

Can your online identity (data) be completely decoupled from your physical identity?

Meaning you will be willing to sell some of your data as long as it didn't tie you to the "real" world. But isn't the entire world being turned into a computer anyways? Comes to mind "as software eats the world" [0].

If computers "eat" the physical world, there can't be no you online and you offline.

[0] https://a16z.com/2011/08/20/why-software-is-eating-the-world...

[gsatic]

Similar things were said about globalization too. That borders and boundaries would evaporate. But we can see many boundaries and divisions getting reinforced. These are huge dynamical systems. Like hurricanes beyond a point they are hard to predict. Quite possible there will be many different networks and they won't all have the same properties.