Apple already shipped attestation on the web, and we barely noticed

This might be where the internet really gets forked, as it's been predicted over and over since the '90s.

On one side, we'll have a "clean", authority-sanctioned "corpweb", where everyone is ID'ed to the wazoo; on the other, a more casual "greynet" galaxy of porn and decentralized communities will likely emerge, once all tinkerers get pushed out of corpnet. It could be an interesting opportunity to reboot a few long-lost dreams.

Internet anarchists getting excited about the prospect of forking the Internet feels a lot like when a lot of preppers got excited about the potential breakdown of society when Covid hit.

“Finally I can put all my skills to the test, which people have been teasing me about for so long.”

In both cases, this attitude has the problem that they ignore the vast majority of people who would suffer under the new order. Very few people would find their way out of the corporate walled gardens and into the free information superhighway.

I read "preppies" as something very different from what you intended, at first, and was really confused, but also got some really funny mental images out of it.

Popped-collar-lacoste-polo madras-shorts-wearing dudes whose only survival skills are knot-tying, trying to get by in the apocalypse. LOL.