The dangers that Tim Berner Lee describes are real. He call them gatekeepers. They are plain old monopolies. This is this classical situation when companies are taking advantage of infrastructures with decreasing marginal costs (e.g. rails). In the case of digital economy, marginal costs goes down to almost zero. That enables the creation and existence of monster sized companies with monster profits. On top of that their influence through search functions and social medias on public opinion is tremendously dangerous.
The novelty here is what Jean Tirole calls the biface markets where companies provide free services that are subsidised by other services (ads).
What (liberals) people fail to see is that all this is the very consequence of the founding principles of the Internet: a network without boundaries that refuses to regulate the service level. Or, a packet is worth another packet and that is all that count. This is dogma. This pure form of liberalism inevitably create almost pure monopolies. Only powerful authoritarian states as China are able to push back and impose their conditions.
The heart of the problem is that the real Internet governance is stopping at IP / UDP / TCP and DNS level. All the other RFC are not enforced. In a normal network, some general functions such as search (Google), directory (Facebook) would be part of the infrastructure and a common services. Communication services (chat, calls) would a real obligation of interoperability, compliance and interconnection. In a sane world, you could post on Facebook using your Google+ account maybe against a subscription.
SPAM is the other consequences of free services everywhere. No accountability for any e-mail sender that sends millions of fake e-mail. No real administration of this communication service.
By refusing to regulate and administrate on service level in the name of "innovation" we create a "winner take all" situation and let companies outgrow public authorities power's. We also create a space where abuser can cheat people using these free services. And to thank the authorities, GAFA compagnies are even "optimizing" their taxe - or to say it plainly - evading legally taxes and let the bridges and road crumble in the US.
It is true that so much has been created by this deregulation. I do not believe that was a bad thing at the beginning: liberalism is efficient usually more efficient in emerging markets. But now, part of the Internet is becoming mature enough so public authorities could put their nose back in the fray and regulate net neutrality - not at the network level but at the SERVICE level.
But this is sooo unamerican.
And many think that private sector > public sector
And we would need a worldwide consensus anyway.
Not gonna happen soon.
