I have long felt kind of smug about being my own publisher. Free at long last! The World Wide Web provides me with all the publishing tools I need without any meddlesome intermediaries, or so I felt for quite a long time. But I am starting to wonder about the web’s future. A recent article in The Guardian has started me thinking about perils that lie ahead (“World Wide Wobble,” August 25, 2014). And I could not but think about the avalanche of comments on one of my pieces of writing, which started coming my way a fortnight ago (“Fakers’ Hypertext,” August 14, 2014). Avalanche is the word, too.

So far, I have received six-hundred and sixty-seven comments on “Hypertext” (December 21, 1989). On some days there are more than a hundred of them. Yes, I immediately set up a spreadsheet to follow the trend. Unfortunately, they are only advertisements for a slew of replicas of fashionable garments, shoes, and accessories. Most of them seem to be coming from China, but Russia is not far behind. I am diligently removing them day after day, both from my Residua website and my electronic mail, but I wonder what I would do if they started coming my way in ever-larger numbers. Sooner or later, I would be swamped with unwanted comments. Both my site and my electronic mail would be overloaded. And I would be powerless against the onslaught.

Many other perils are just behind the corner, no doubt. They were difficult to foresee when I put my writings on the web in 2000, as well as when I turned my site into a blog in 2008, but things are not as they used to be any longer. What is worst, there is little I can do at present against the perils ahead. Actually, I can only wait to see what will happen next. Besides, I can do my best not to worry about it too much. But being my own publisher has turned out to be a bit less appealing a prospect than I thought so many years ago. This is yet another idea of freedom that is best left behind. Freedom, what freedom?