I think the premise is mistaken, and the so is the meaning taken from David Bowie's comment (that if he'd started in 2000 he'd not have entered the music business because it was no longer subversive).<p>David Bowie started making music in the early-mid 60s, which was the era of doo-wop, sha-la-la, Louie Louie, and other popular but mainstream (and not even slightly subversive) music. It so happens that the 60s also gave us the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, Yes, Genesis, and so on, but it's <i>so easy</i> to take what we like from that era and remember only that.<p>The era of the 2000s that Bowie says is not subversive also gave us innovation in music and other art. The same thing can be said even of this year. Music might have been <i>a dominant</i> means of novel creative expression in the 60s (although television was in a massive ascendancy, and the Beat poets and investigative journalism were also hugely influential in other areas), but it was no more subversive then than it is today when you consider NiN, Skrillex, and the constant innovation in indie rock and EDM.<p>The reason the Internet might have been considered "subversive" by this article in the 2000s (and music less so) is that it was on the boundary between innovation and mainstream, as was Bowie's brand of music in the 60s and 70s. It's nothing to do with authority and everything to do with a new generation creating something without heeding the status quo, without sticking within the established norms.<p><i>This</i>, if anything, is what the article describes. Not subversion, but innovation beyond the established norms. When someone in their late teens or early twenties starts creating, they often do so by solving problems in new ways that are not based on existing solutions or patterns, and sometimes that act of creation from relative ignorance creates entirely new norms.<p>Applying that thought to now: The Internet is now mainstream, but the innovation that has not yet become mainstream is that which is controversial, that which laws and regulations have not yet caught up with. Social media and social content platforms (Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter) started in an era where they didn't have to deal with trolls until they arrived, which meant they could do the fun stuff first and <i>then</i> raise the bar as the bad parts of society (griefers, regulations, nannying) caught up. A new platform in the same space has to reach <i>that</i> bar to <i>get started</i>. Topics that are currently in that space between innovation and mainstream acceptance (hence regulation and nannying) might include privacy/encryption, P2P, geographical presence sharing and decoupling, piracy, gender/sexuality issues, drug taking and distribution, or any of a number of other things that create tension due to being innovated faster than the status quo can keep up.<p>Some of those things look "subversive" in the classical sense, but in reality it's technology moving at the leading edge of society and society catching up, rather than anything to do with authority.