It is sad. When I was a kid we called up BBS’s that were hosted in people’s homes; when I was in high school we downloaded music from public FTP addresses; when I was in college we set up our own websites. Anyone could set up a server, and that server was just as much a part of the Internet as any other server; that’s simply not viable any longer, even if you weren’t worried about making money. The Internet as we knew it is dead.
There are, however, green shoots of possibility, and once again the answer is to go smaller. When anyone can make an app, the answer is not to try and make a quick buck in the App Store; in fact, the surge in slop will make the market worse for everyone. Rather, it’s to make something for yourself and a small group of trusted friends and colleagues.