Nice headline, not sure about its conclusions. What went wrong (among many things) IMHO:

* IP->UDP+TCP->HTTP->HTTPS should have been IP->UDP->TCP->HTTP->Skype/Tor/IPFS/Universal-performant-P2P-encryption->HTTPS

* NAT, UPNP and other informal/non-scalable enterprise solutions had no place on the web because they made low-latency P2P communication nearly impossible to implement, so relegated most users to being second-class netizens

* Software patents ruined JPEG, GIF, streaming, file compression and so many other ubiquitous technologies by contaminating protocols with restrictive licensing or DRM, which severely limited use cases and tended towards consumption rather than production, which also relegated most users to being second-class netizens and set us up for:

* Declarative and data-driven innovations like HTTP and HTML regressing back to hand-rolled imperative solutions running natively on mobile devices, which opened the door to:

* Private companies being the gate keepers of which applications and online tools are allowed in app stores

* Free and open online communities funded by advertising being marginalized by greed from ad agencies (including Google) to the point where customer acquisition costs usually exceeded their lifetime value, which prevented most web businesses from being scalable. Which led us to:

* Walled gardens which use surveillance (rather than ads) to extract value from users and sell it, which led us to:

* Extreme wealth inequality where a select few individuals and organizations picked winners and losers by deciding which startup ideas got funding (arguably the majority of startup IPOs today revolve around zero sum games, disrupting key infrastructure companies that employ millions of people, and providing services or service industries which solve pain points instead of providing real innovations in sustenance/basic needs/standard of living)

* Entrenchment of internet service provider duopolies in almost all cities while simultaneously banning municipal wifi via bribery/lobbying

* Filtering of the service/gig economy through unelected referees like Yelp and ad/payment processors like Google/PayPal being able to starve income streams arbitrarily

* Monopolization of almost all publishing/broadcasting, starting with the AOL-Time Warner merger, creeping slowly through canned radio/the loss of DJs/nearly all radio subsidiaries being owned by a single broadcaster like Cumulous, while simultaneously eliminating most independent newspaper journalism by consolidating papers under umbrellas like News Corp/Fox, and culminating with expensive a la carte streaming services grabbing any remaining eyeballs so that travesties like Sesame Street moving from PBS to HBO Max are unsurprising anymore

* Monopolization of almost all online commerce under single entities like Amazon so that if products aren’t blessed by a prime designation, sales fall by orders of magnitude, which led us to:

* Wall street taking priority over main street, rainmakers picking our elected officials and populism being coopted by Stockholm syndrome so the masses clamor for it

I added that last one to illustrate why the loss of the free and open internet can be detrimental to society.