It just decouples commenting communities from publishers of the content being commented on, it doesn't change (increase or decrease) the work required or tools available for moderation. In effect, it just provides a standard structure for consumer-driven discovery of what already happens in off-site discussions that already happen (e.g., via sharing and dicussing the source on social media.)
Certainly if browsers integrate annotation natively, it would increase the discoverability of conversation considerably which is of course the point.
I personally think if that is done it should require the user to purposely choose an annotation service as well. The actual act of inviting the conversation to pages should involve a user choice.
See further thoughts on the question of page owner consent-to-be-annotated in another of my replies above.
> It's like making it mandatory for restaurants to have a live updating Yelp! review display scrolling at the front door.
It's more like AR technology existing and allowing consumers to have any review source they choose accessible and popping up live reviews as they walk by businesses (actually, without the actual AR part, mobile virtual assistance like Google Now provide that today based on geolocation, so much it's really something that already exists in physical space extending into cyberspace); but, yes, you control your content, but not what other people say about your content, and not how other people find and share what other people have said about your content.
I'm assuming browsers will implement this natively, with a default provider, much like they do search engines.
I'm not saying it's necessarily bad.
It is, though, more discoverable than anything preceding it in this space, assuming browsers leverage it. It would likely create a fair amount of churn.
I guess you'll have to choose wisely your annotations sources... If you see too much spam on 1 source, just unsubscribe. As said earlier, it's not so different of reddit/HN discuussions abouut content. The publisher may not even be aware of the discussion.
Again, it's about discoverability. If browsers support this natively, visiting a website would put up a virtual "link" of some sort to see the discussions for every url, as you visit them. There's a difference between discussion exists somewhere, and discussion is tied to your website/url.
I think it's more like customers always being able to display Yelp reviews for the restaurant they're currently standing in front of on their phones or AR glasses or whatever.
