Joe Offer wrote: Can't say I have much concern about Mudcat, because Mudcat is mostly text and requires very little bandwidth.

The concern might be about availability, rather than speed. An ISP might do a deal with Facebook, Netflix, and select others, and put 'the rest of the web' (RoW) in a separate paid-for bundle. Some people would be happy with just Facebook - who needs the RoW?

Governments increasingly require ISPs to regulate content - block porn, archive everything for the security services - which is expensive. The RoW becomes increasingly expensive to provide and a legal liability. So it becomes a premium bundle - and fewer people take it.

Banks, shops, government services, move off the web into Facebook, or only use apps which they pay ISPs to let though. Much cheaper for ISPs to not offer the RoW at all and subcontract all those requirenents and liabilities to Facebook etc.

We saw it in the UK with usenet. It was part if the internet so ISPs provided it. Then they decided that the internet meant the web and dropped it. It could happen with the RoW - the free and open part of the web.