cosmicreggae

Aside from being paid to write and take pictures, probably using MS Paint to gussy up images for posts, like this dolphin w/ bazooka: http://imgur.com/aV45r9r

Yeah, the announcement broke our hearts.

I wouldn't be too concerned though, as replacements are already popping up. It's a good reminder, however, that as the web becomes more static with major players dominating more areas, it's more at risk of upheaval.

Hi, Derek here. (I guess I just outed myself on Reddit.) I'll answer #2 to start, because I spent a fair bit playing around in there looking for rhino horn.

I think Tor's place moving into the future will solidify more as a communication tool than anything else. Stuff like the Silk Road will probably always persist, but there's so much attention in that space now that law enforcement will be close behind, even with something like rhino horn.

But as people become more and more obsessed with privacy, giants like Google continue to dominate the web while being fairly friendly with law enforcement, and all three branches of the federal government not concerned in the least with treating the online space as it would treat physical space, I think more and more people are going to seek out secure ways to communicate. I don't know that Tor is the best answer, as it's pretty clunky by it's very nature, but more distributed and more secure online communication is going to become more popular in the future, assuming we can escape from the Goog's clutches.

I think the web is increasingly being divided into social filter bubbles, and that those bubbles will likely become more increasingly corporate because that's where the eyes are, and thus is where the ad money will flow.

At the same time, the web will always be growing and growing in every direction. It's like the universe or some shit. The rift might not be apparent, because the social web does mix things up well, but remember the days when you'd actually surf through Web 1.0? Where sites actually linked out to other sites? That, I think, is being lost.

Maybe quantum encryption will happen? Otherwise, no, but as long as you stay a step ahead of the snoopers, there's hope.