Unlike the land of Lords, the internet is not all bought up and unavailable to us peasants.
Yet.
What happens when all your family and friends are on X (where X is (or is like)) Facebook or Google+, and the only way to keep in touch with them is by giving in and joining?
Explain to them about the risks and business plans of companies like Facebook and Google. Give them your email address, telephone number and website/blog and ask for theirs.
If they are only prepared to keep in touch with you through something like Facebook and Google+, then they're not really interested in keeping in touch. Rather go find people with which you are actually both mutually interested and stop chasing after 'obligations'. Life is too short.
> then they're not really interested in keeping in touch
Yes, or they are simply not interested in stories about the risks and plans of Google and Facebook. Or do not understand when you try to explain it.
A significant part of my family and friends is already on that path: only reachable through sites like facebook or gmail. Taking some "political stance" in not joining (how they see it) will very readily be translated in "you are not joining. you are not really interested in keeping in touch with me."
So no. It will work out precisely the other way around.
I am compelled to point out that gmail is just an interface to email. Perhaps you meant G+?
Either way, I think email is a pretty open method of communication. As hard as they've tried, FB/G+/Twitter have managed to augment rather than supplant email.
They're also pretty new. I suspect in 30 years, nobody will be using them, but email will still be around. (Probably still using SMTP and battling spam, TBH...)
Still a poor analogy. With feudalism, people had no choice. Now people have a choice but due to social pressure make terrible choices. No system can save people from their own short-sightedness, the best case is a system where those who want to choose an alternative can do so, and the Internet provides that.
And there is always the option of creating a puppet account on facebook and keeping any sensitive information anonymous.
Comparing this to indentured servitude is pretty silly. A serf has to eat. If all your friends and family are on Facebook and refuse to interact with you via any other means, that is not the same as being forced.
What? Ignoring the fact that I can't figure out what your second sentence means, obviously he's comparing it to forced labor. That's what we're talking about.
Trying to clarify what I mean, I'll probably give up after this as I'm
on my 3rd day of very little sleep so perhaps I'm just incoherent.
My reading of his linked essay is as a discussion of the power dynamic
between users and companies they rely on. This is compared with a
romanticized version of feudalism. While the users are not compelled
to actually use these services, once they enter into them they are at
the mercy of the companies (feudal lords) to not take advantage of
their much greater position of power (like his version of the early
feudal era serfs).
Yet.
What happens when all your family and friends are on X (where X is (or is like)) Facebook or Google+, and the only way to keep in touch with them is by giving in and joining?