But not any different in the context I’m talking about

That’s just private web with extra steps, really

There’s really 4 5 spaces in the main internet:

• the public corporate web (YouTube, Facebook, twitter, Reddit, etc)
• the private corporate web (requires login to view any content, Software as a Service, Cloud Apps, Gmail, etc)
• the public web (Wikimedia, Wikia, Archive.org)
• the indie web / small web
• private web - inaccessible except through login or through VPN or TOR/Onion, but not corporate (media servers, email servers, darkweb, file servers)

And currently the main issue is that the corporate web is intentionally trying to strangle the other spaces on the web.

But there are some movements against it, https://indieweb.org/ and https://neocities.com/ and https://smallweb.cc/

Edit: missed one of the spaces

Pretty sure that ship already sailed, I’ll be honest