There wasn't a singular moment when it went wrong. It's been a long, steady decline. Hackers have gradually been marginalized and replaced by bureaucrats.
I've been reading Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution [1] by Steven Levy. It's fascinating, but also heartbreaking, to see how things have gone, given that the hackers of the 60's and 70's were fighting against it even back then.
Well, to be fair, the transition between the hackers and the bureaucrats was greased by abusive MBAs.
EU data privacy legislation wouldn't have been seen as necessary if companies weren't exploiting their user base unethically. The fight to keep the Internet open to everyone should have been an easy one for the "hackers" to win... but the other side had help.
I've been reading Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution [1] by Steven Levy. It's fascinating, but also heartbreaking, to see how things have gone, given that the hackers of the 60's and 70's were fighting against it even back then.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers%3A_Heroes_of_the_Compu...