“Humanity” feels like a grand term for a concept a couple decades old or so, but I guess it’s right, and it’s the same thing that happened with railways way back in the day.

Legislation would be amazing, and it even seems plausible that the EU might adopt something like that eventually. Even without, though, we have the advantage that monopolies have a way of collapsing themselves in the long run, whether by dynastic succession (the Medici bank IIRC), complacency (Xerox) or anti-trust issues (Standard Oil), while the fediverse can’t really die that way.