In case you\u2019re not familiar with SF writer Neil Stephenson<\/a>, you could probably not do much worse than getting yourself a copy of his 1992 (1992!!!) novel Snow Crash<\/a> and reflecting on how much of that has (and is still likely to) come to pass. The guy\u2019s a visionary and will generally feature on most of your \u2018Tech Billionaire\u2019s Reading Lists\u2019, which is why he\u2019s always worth reading both for the enjoyment of his novels (Seveneves<\/a> is a cracking read too, if a bit silly towards the end) and also because, well, he\u2019s often as much of a futurist as you\u2019ll find in the digital space.<\/p>\n Anyway – fanboy stuff over – his latest novel, Fall, or Dodge in Hell<\/a>, is as much a romp through a futuristic landscape as a fantasy novel that deals with the question of what might happen should we be able to develop, post-death, a fully accurate scan of your connectome<\/a> alongside sufficiently powerful neural computing capacity to bring you digitally back to \u2018life\u2019.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s where the actually-relevant-to-wp-land stuff kicks in, because Dodge (reborn Egdod) finds himself, and then others, in a haphazard, chaotic, open world of endless possibilities and infinite opportunities for shaping and reshaping. Read, for us, the internet and the chaos of a world yet to be formed that gave us html sites, Dreamweaver, GeoCities, Movable Type, open-source-CMSs-galore and finally, has settled, on yours and my favorite of them all, WordPress.<\/p>\n Which has turned out pretty cool yeh? I\u2019m running a WP-based business as, I imagine, are most of you in some form or another. The medium I am posting this mindump of a post in is, itself, a WP business. Many families are fed and many lives are led as part of this dominant ecosystem. Hallelujah!<\/p>\n But, what if that were to change. What if we & WP were to be flung out. What if that was actually the most<\/em> likely outcome. What could be The Fall?<\/p>\n Well, I\u2019m very much on the record as arguing, and trying to counter the fact that it would be via the much more easy-to-use, well funded and end-consumer driven third party competition, think Squarespace, Shopify, Wix etc. But I was wrong<\/a>. Again, lol.<\/p>\n For any number of reasons (capacity, community, cost\u2026 to name a few) alongside Gutenberg being the great leap forward (pun intended) we needed to bridge that gap. Yay! WP lives long & prospers!<\/p>\n Or, does it?<\/p>\n Because there are dark clouds not just on the horizon, but already here. Clouds that I think can be fairly neatly grouped into corporate and government threats. Threats that come with their own hosts (I can\u2019t help myself) of support and that would seek to dominate and, even better, displace the web as we know it and, with it, WP.<\/p>\n For purposes commercial I don\u2019t think we really need to look much further than what – to me at least – comes across as a hugely ironic scream into the abyss, also known as ‘A meditation on the open web’. Which, upon watching, as opposed to taking a deep breath you might as well flee screaming down the street shouting \u201cThey are coming to take us all arggggggghhhh!!! Faaaaaaaarrrrkkk!!!\u201d.<\/p>\n![\"Fall](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/fallordodgetinhellcover.jpg\")