So if an everything app is terrible for liberal democracies and free markets and the internet is the everything app, then it follows that the internet is terrible for liberal democracies and free markets.
The internet is not an everything ‘app’ in the sense that it’s built/controlled by one firm. The reason the internet is good for liberal democracy is that it’s (declining) openness creates very low barriers for entry, free innovation undermines market power and architecture limits state power.
Stuff that changes that nature of the internet presents the danger to liberal democracy.
The article is clearly talking about centralized everything apps. I mean most of their complaints are about a private company dominating the whole market. If we want to talk about a generalized idea of an everything app that includes something decentralized like the internet, then I think we'll have mooted most of their concerns.
I would be inclined to agree, though whether that shows more the problems with liberal democracies and free markets or with the internet is still to decide.
It's actually an interesting analogy, because road design can have a great effect on the drivers - you can't prevent bad drivers, but you can mitigate issues (see: traffic calming, roundabouts, etc).
Similar things that were baked into the internet continue to provide dividends today, but it has to be intentional, and as more and more of the modern internet is designed by groups of companies rather than groups of academics it can shift.
