>"The handwave is the word "prefigure". How did IPv4 and NAT play any role in the dominance of Facebook, Airbnb et cetera?"
I don't see any handwaving in the word "prefigure" at all. The first middle men were arguably dial up ISPs. They literally brokered your connection to the internet. You got an IP from a dial up pool. Besides having a transit connection these companies had the pool of IP addresses you needed to be a node on the internet.
And so in some way that was the first "computer in front of your computer" business model. I think the author is drawing a through line from there and the business of brokering internet traffic. I don't believe they not saying that NAT enabled FB.
I don't see any handwaving in the word "prefigure" at all. The first middle men were arguably dial up ISPs. They literally brokered your connection to the internet. You got an IP from a dial up pool. Besides having a transit connection these companies had the pool of IP addresses you needed to be a node on the internet.
And so in some way that was the first "computer in front of your computer" business model. I think the author is drawing a through line from there and the business of brokering internet traffic. I don't believe they not saying that NAT enabled FB.