But even this sort of reverses the causality. Most of these things are a response to the way that people have taken to the web--and to the host of other technologies that make it possible to produce content cheaply. It should also be noted that virtually the same sort of thing happened in the 1920s with radio. It was actually a hobbyist technology through which the same kind of "anyone," i.e. someone with a bit of extra money and time, could both send and recieve messages. As soon as it became popular issues such as intellectual property and corporate ownership became the norm. By 1932, we had major radio networks spanning the country and exclusive licenses for use of the airwaves handed out to the corporations who owned those networks--one of which also happened to own the patent rights to the radio.
So, yeah, there is every reason to believe that the web as we know it is a fragile network--and that the average American consumer problably wouldn't notice the difference if their content was beamed at them, and thus probably wouldn't put up much of a fight if the dreams of AOL/TW and Comcast to have bigger pipes that they own like cable TV. In other words, if we're celebrating the 15th anniversary of the web, the important thing to say over and over is that the issue isn't whether it would have been possible if the corporate model had taken hold from the beginning: of course it wouldn't have. The real issue is that the corporate model has every intention of killing or colonizing it within our lifetimes and making sure that it doesn't get any freer. And right now, they've got a lot going for them.
-s