Recently Yahoo have shut down Geocities while AOL shut down its Hometown about a year ago. Most ISPs now no longer provide webspace as standard. All the while Yahoo have been promoting themselves as empowering users, making the internet about "you" and blah blah, when in reality they've just removed their one service that gave the users more freedom than any other. I suppose for Johnny Q. Doesntknowhtml, a generic blogging service or the like is more immediately accessible and less intimidating than a chunk of empty webspace. But as soon as he seeks more flexibility (without having to stump up cash) the options are dying out.

There are still free web hosting services around, but now most people don't even consider making their own site; for your average user, the web doesn't really belong to them anymore, regardless of what the marketing says. It belongs to Twitter and Youtube and Facebook and Myspace and Blogger, tightly controlled frameworks through which you may express yourself only within the parameters established by the corporations that own them. I do use several of these sites, I can't deny they're all useful for one thing or another, but they shouldn't be the core of the entire web. But they are, and much of its independent spirit is dying out as a result. Which, to me, is kinda sad.