Folksonomy/Corporate Control

I found it interesting that the day after our class discussion of folksonomy and corporate control (bottom up and top down control/content), we discussed nearly the same thing in my history of media class. After talking about user-generated content and corporate ownership of popular websites on the internet, the professor asked us what direction we thought the internet what directed. It just got me thinking. I probably don't know enough about the subject myself, but it seems as though America has almost always been under some sort of corporate control and although the Internet has made much progress in giving consumers more power, I just don't see monumental changes in our social system anytime soon. Maybe I'm being pessimistic...any comments?