Tech giants have hijacked the web – Some innovators are developing new platforms(wsj.com)
wsj.com
Tech giants have hijacked the web – Some innovators are developing new platforms
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tech-giants-have-hijacked-the-web-its-time-for-a-reboot-11572062420?mod=rsswn
103 comments
In a sense, we do -- the abundance of free services and networks on which many of us rely. Through that lens, what is at issue may be that people feel that they are not being compensated enough for private information.
Jaron points out that it is precisely free services and information intersected with the profit motive that pushes businesses models based on advertising, tracking, and manipulation to be the most viable.
Also, I don't believe that getting something for free is "getting paid".
Also, I don't believe that getting something for free is "getting paid".
You don't believe that getting something is getting paid? "Payment in kind" is a pretty ancient (and still relevant) concept, and it seems very weird to tie the concept of payment solely to currency. (obviously excluding narrow cases like income reporting, where the gov't needs you to convert any sort of payment into USD so they can calculate your taxes)
there is a huge difference in agency and choice. they are not remotely the same thing.
Silly title and framing aside, the alternatives being reported on are really exciting. Some sound implausible, but the goal is good. I'm particularly intrigued by attempts along the lines of Tim Berners-Lee's Solid protocols. It's not, as WSJ frames it, because the evil monopolies are hacking our elections or whatever. But it is a path towards open protocols. It's a shame the journalist butchered such an interesting and important topic in order to exploit the anti-big-tech zeitgeist.
Here is a non-pay wall article featuring Tim Berners-Lee SOLID and our technology:
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/these-technologists-t...
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/these-technologists-t...
Tech giants have hijacked the web – Some guys promoting shitcoins paid us to write this PR piece
And it's behind a paywall. How ironic. How are the masses supposed to get to know the new social media platforms if WSJ keeps it a pay-to-know secret? (Yeah, I know you can read it by cheating.)
There are many compelling technology projects in this space. However, there are many different use cases on the web and when it sounds like you solve all of them, the value proposition gets obfuscated.
One of my favorite web sites is https://www.sheldonbrown.com/
It captures the promise of the web and accessible boutique information. I hope there is a rebirth of that early web movement for high quality highly curated content and knowledge. It starts with people though. The tech is just a tool.
One of my favorite web sites is https://www.sheldonbrown.com/
It captures the promise of the web and accessible boutique information. I hope there is a rebirth of that early web movement for high quality highly curated content and knowledge. It starts with people though. The tech is just a tool.
Sheldon Brown has probably had a bigger influence on me than any other public figure. When I get old, I want to be like him, and I’ve been using his “Product W” doping protocol with great results already. I don’t want to die like him, but if humans still drive cars, I probably will. Pretty amazing how much impact you could have just by sharing a passion for something that benefits everybody. (way off-topic, sorry)
I think the problem is that this kind of web relies on altruism to work. People have to donate their time, effort, knowledge, and sometimes even personal money (hosting isn't free) to create and maintain these kinds of sites. Meanwhile, there are far more people who would rather attempt to make money doing the same thing, so non-altruistic content ends up outweighing the old-web kind. This has become especially true on YouTube where good content is much harder to make, so the vast majority of creators are pursing some kind of monetary compensation, whether from ads, sponsorship, patrons, merchandise, or something else.
I wonder if there is a way to turn the problem into an opportunity. These people do exist, and to your point, they are not motivated by purely money.
I do not get it. Are you saying it looks 90s? Are you saying the content is great? "it captures the promise of the web and accessible..." Do you mean to say he is using alt tabs and accessibility options all over (I did not see that yet). He has a lot of js scripts... but it sure looks 90s.
The content is great.
The styling is, let’s say utilitarian. :)
Accessible in the dictionary sense of the word. Everyone can access the content. I am not sure about the handicap accessibility, however it would not surprise me if it was “accessible“ in that way given Sheldon’s attention to detail.
Though, the website seems to have been updated by other people since Sheldon died so I am not sure about its current “state”/quality.
Hopefully this clarifies my post.
The styling is, let’s say utilitarian. :)
Accessible in the dictionary sense of the word. Everyone can access the content. I am not sure about the handicap accessibility, however it would not surprise me if it was “accessible“ in that way given Sheldon’s attention to detail.
Though, the website seems to have been updated by other people since Sheldon died so I am not sure about its current “state”/quality.
Hopefully this clarifies my post.
The content is flawless. One old dude put a site together that is now The Bible for anyone who does their own bicycle maintenance. It’s a cult classic, if you will. People that want information on that specific topic use it, and the rest of the world just glosses over it or doesnt understand it’s significance. It’s not about technology, or who’s using js scripts, or a monetization scheme. It’s just pure information put together in a way that it’s target community can readily ingest.
Hi, just adding my 2 cents onto your sentiment. The photographer and equipment reviewer Ken Rockwell has a similar aesthetic on his homepage: https://www.kenrockwell.com
While supported by pay product links, this site contains no ads other than all the copy. His content has no dumb pop ups or any janky junk, however it will still satisfy a startup chief-of-design's checkbox by loading extremely slowly (due to the many full size image examples on every page, in this case)
I love it when Noscript has little to do.
While supported by pay product links, this site contains no ads other than all the copy. His content has no dumb pop ups or any janky junk, however it will still satisfy a startup chief-of-design's checkbox by loading extremely slowly (due to the many full size image examples on every page, in this case)
I love it when Noscript has little to do.
Ken Rockwell is nothing like Sheldon brown. Rockwell gets paid by manufactures to review their gear, and it’s ALWAYS a favorable review for the $$$$$ items. There’s no ads cuz he’s paid to put that info there.(product placement at its finest, if you will) Sheldon brown was an old guy that loved bikes and was full of knowledge, and his site was full of more information than just gear reviews, and some people loved and relied on it so much they decided to keep the site up after his death.
That site still has lots of javascript.
Ironic that they write about hijacking the web on a page that I cannot read without a subscription......
Isn’t there something fundamentally healthier about a web where you directly pay for what you use? (Not saying they shouldn’t have micropayments, etc. but at this point I’m ready for the adtech industry to stop sucking the oxygen out of the room)
I'm not certain it would be fundamentally better. It seems possible! But it will have new dynamics at scale, and our current predicament already suggests that we aren't great at predicting what will emerge from them.
But I wanted to follow on here because I think the Web's dynamics around cost/money apply a lot of selective pressure once most things grow bigger than a hobby until they're big enough to leverage network effects.
But I wanted to follow on here because I think the Web's dynamics around cost/money apply a lot of selective pressure once most things grow bigger than a hobby until they're big enough to leverage network effects.
No.
Information is a public good, in an economic sense. It is not, generally, something people pay for, and historically hasn't been
The initial age of directly-paid content -- a small number of largely business-oriented, small-circulation newspapers, of which the WSJ is a descendant -- existed only from about the mid-18th through mid-19th centuries. By the 1850s, mass-circulation advertising-supported penny papers had become a norm, and a problem, as they were driven by oitrage, hoaxes, scandals, and direct manipulation, the clickbait of the day.
There's a wondrful contemporaneous account of this I cannot recommend highly enough, Hamilton Holt's Commercialism and Journalism, from a UC Berkeley lecture delivered in 1909:
https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holt/page/n11
During the 1930s the new medium of radio saw huge debates on public vs. private control of the airwaves. Notably, the US adopted a private model, the UK public, with the BBC, citing the dangers of private and foreign influence. Robert McChesney has covered this in Telecommunications, mass media and democracy: battle for control of US broadcasting, 1928-35:
https://www.worldcat.org/title/telecommunications-mass-media...
Nobel laureate economis Joseph Stiglitz:
"Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, described knowledge in the following way: “he who receives an idea from me,receives instruc-tion himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me”. In doing so, Jefferson anticipated the modern concept of a public good. Today we recognize that knowledge is not only a public good but also a global or international public good.We have also come to recognize that knowledge is central to successful development. The international community,through institutions like the World Bank, has a collective responsibility for the creation and dissemination of one global public good—knowledge for development."
Joseph Stiglitz, "Knowledge as a Public Good"
http://s1.downloadmienphi.net/file/downloadfile6/151/1384343...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz
Micropayments fail for the reasons highlighted b Nick Szabo and Andrew Odlyzko two decades ago:
http://szabo.best.vwh.net/micropayments.html
http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/case.against.micropaymen...
A media readers are required to pay for directly is one that's available to few (especially on a global scale), which is incentivised by that revenue stream, and which seeks other forms of revenue, notably advertising, with all the ills that entails, again covered 110 years ago in Hamilton Holt's little book, an summarised by publisher John Swinton, quoted anonymously in that work:
There is no such thing in America as an independent press. I am paid for keeping honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. If I should allow honest opinions to be printed in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation, like Othello's, would be gone. The business of a New York journalist is to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the foot of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. We are the tools or vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. Our time, our talents, our lives, our possibilities, are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.
Information is a public good, in an economic sense. It is not, generally, something people pay for, and historically hasn't been
The initial age of directly-paid content -- a small number of largely business-oriented, small-circulation newspapers, of which the WSJ is a descendant -- existed only from about the mid-18th through mid-19th centuries. By the 1850s, mass-circulation advertising-supported penny papers had become a norm, and a problem, as they were driven by oitrage, hoaxes, scandals, and direct manipulation, the clickbait of the day.
There's a wondrful contemporaneous account of this I cannot recommend highly enough, Hamilton Holt's Commercialism and Journalism, from a UC Berkeley lecture delivered in 1909:
https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holt/page/n11
During the 1930s the new medium of radio saw huge debates on public vs. private control of the airwaves. Notably, the US adopted a private model, the UK public, with the BBC, citing the dangers of private and foreign influence. Robert McChesney has covered this in Telecommunications, mass media and democracy: battle for control of US broadcasting, 1928-35:
https://www.worldcat.org/title/telecommunications-mass-media...
Nobel laureate economis Joseph Stiglitz:
"Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, described knowledge in the following way: “he who receives an idea from me,receives instruc-tion himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me”. In doing so, Jefferson anticipated the modern concept of a public good. Today we recognize that knowledge is not only a public good but also a global or international public good.We have also come to recognize that knowledge is central to successful development. The international community,through institutions like the World Bank, has a collective responsibility for the creation and dissemination of one global public good—knowledge for development."
Joseph Stiglitz, "Knowledge as a Public Good"
http://s1.downloadmienphi.net/file/downloadfile6/151/1384343...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz
Micropayments fail for the reasons highlighted b Nick Szabo and Andrew Odlyzko two decades ago:
http://szabo.best.vwh.net/micropayments.html
http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/case.against.micropaymen...
A media readers are required to pay for directly is one that's available to few (especially on a global scale), which is incentivised by that revenue stream, and which seeks other forms of revenue, notably advertising, with all the ills that entails, again covered 110 years ago in Hamilton Holt's little book, an summarised by publisher John Swinton, quoted anonymously in that work:
There is no such thing in America as an independent press. I am paid for keeping honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. If I should allow honest opinions to be printed in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation, like Othello's, would be gone. The business of a New York journalist is to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the foot of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. We are the tools or vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. Our time, our talents, our lives, our possibilities, are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.
>Information is a public good, in an economic sense. It is not, generally, something people pay for, and historically hasn't been.
Just by being public good does not make something necessarily free. For example street lightning.
If you seek information on "Does God exist?" you can get different answers depending whom you ask. Some of these sources made a lot of money in the process, because their information had certain non-zero value to those receiving it.
Also certain types of information cost resources to produce. I pay for Youtube because I want to support certain kind of information creation that I consume while not having my intelligence insulted with ads. The same for MIT Technology Review and Nautilus.
IMO there is nothing wrong in information costing money but the two problems I see are:
- Absolute pricing models create inequality. $1/week for WSJ is very different to someone making $5,000/week vs someone $50/week and they both 'deserve' to have access to it.
- The user experience of walled gardens is terrible, as you have to subscribe to each independently
Just by being public good does not make something necessarily free. For example street lightning.
If you seek information on "Does God exist?" you can get different answers depending whom you ask. Some of these sources made a lot of money in the process, because their information had certain non-zero value to those receiving it.
Also certain types of information cost resources to produce. I pay for Youtube because I want to support certain kind of information creation that I consume while not having my intelligence insulted with ads. The same for MIT Technology Review and Nautilus.
IMO there is nothing wrong in information costing money but the two problems I see are:
- Absolute pricing models create inequality. $1/week for WSJ is very different to someone making $5,000/week vs someone $50/week and they both 'deserve' to have access to it.
- The user experience of walled gardens is terrible, as you have to subscribe to each independently
"Public good" is a specific term of art in the economic sense. It doesn't mean that the good has no cost, but that its price fails to correspond to either that and/or the value, where costs of production, price of exchange, and value of use, are three distinct concepts quite often confused in economic discussions (a topic for another day, though I've written on this at https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/48rd02/cost_va... I've also just learnt that Marx anticipates me by a century and a half).
A public good:
In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be excluded from use or could be enjoyed without paying for it, and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others or the goods can be effectively consumed simultaneously by more than one person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good
The problem then is that attempting to enforce per-use payments for access to public goods is tremendously inefficient.
You cannot effectively and with low consequences restrict access. The cost, particularly at a global level, will mean that there are many, often billions, who won't have access.
Your own ability to pay for content means that you've got an influence that those who don't lack. This ultimately gets us to a Patronage model of content. That's an option, but what you end up with is the patron's interests unduly represented. If you lived in 18th century Europe, your preference in large-ensemble music or visual artworks would best be strongly similar to that of the Catholic Church. I had the realisation, watching a computer animation festival in the late 1980s, that the role of the church in modern computer graphics was largely replaced by tobacco companies, who'd financed a large share of the entries.
There is also the contrast of information which the audience seeks vs. that which the creator or publisher wishes to have distributed. The former is copy or content, the latter is advertising and propaganda. They are not always clearly distinguished. And the economics of each are dramatically different.
The world I'd like to see is one in which a means-to-pay funding model, some semblance of a universal or basic income, a modest performance bonus, and universal access, are strong if not global norms.
Effectively, markets and information play together extraordinarily poorly.
https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2vm2da/why_inf...
A public good:
In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be excluded from use or could be enjoyed without paying for it, and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others or the goods can be effectively consumed simultaneously by more than one person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good
The problem then is that attempting to enforce per-use payments for access to public goods is tremendously inefficient.
You cannot effectively and with low consequences restrict access. The cost, particularly at a global level, will mean that there are many, often billions, who won't have access.
Your own ability to pay for content means that you've got an influence that those who don't lack. This ultimately gets us to a Patronage model of content. That's an option, but what you end up with is the patron's interests unduly represented. If you lived in 18th century Europe, your preference in large-ensemble music or visual artworks would best be strongly similar to that of the Catholic Church. I had the realisation, watching a computer animation festival in the late 1980s, that the role of the church in modern computer graphics was largely replaced by tobacco companies, who'd financed a large share of the entries.
There is also the contrast of information which the audience seeks vs. that which the creator or publisher wishes to have distributed. The former is copy or content, the latter is advertising and propaganda. They are not always clearly distinguished. And the economics of each are dramatically different.
The world I'd like to see is one in which a means-to-pay funding model, some semblance of a universal or basic income, a modest performance bonus, and universal access, are strong if not global norms.
Effectively, markets and information play together extraordinarily poorly.
https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2vm2da/why_inf...
I'd take ads over direct payment any day. Content in the web would be far more limited without ads.
Of course i'd prefer to have neither, but that's a different conversation...
Of course i'd prefer to have neither, but that's a different conversation...
Where's the irony?
The real irony is when people complain that sites monetize their personal data and then also complain about paywalled articles.
These sites have to make money somehow or they won’t exist for long.
These sites have to make money somehow or they won’t exist for long.
You can advertise without collecting personal data. Magazines do it, broadcast television does it, billboards do it, etc...
> These sites have to make money somehow or they won’t exist for long.
Crowdfunding (Kickstarter, Patreon etc.) provides a successful model for funding content quite directly, without slapping a hefty paywall onto it. This stuff is not rocket science, it actually works quite nicely.
Crowdfunding (Kickstarter, Patreon etc.) provides a successful model for funding content quite directly, without slapping a hefty paywall onto it. This stuff is not rocket science, it actually works quite nicely.
I see no irony here.
First of all, they are probably doing both things today.
Second, not necessarily the same people that complains about adds complains about paywalls.
Also, If you don't live in the US, 99.99% of wsj' contents is irrelevant, excepting that one article you read once an year. So subscribing is not worth it.
Meanwhile it excludes a ridiculous amount of people of a very important subject for the whole world.
Please track the hell out of me but don't paywall on subjects that matter.
First of all, they are probably doing both things today.
Second, not necessarily the same people that complains about adds complains about paywalls.
Also, If you don't live in the US, 99.99% of wsj' contents is irrelevant, excepting that one article you read once an year. So subscribing is not worth it.
Meanwhile it excludes a ridiculous amount of people of a very important subject for the whole world.
Please track the hell out of me but don't paywall on subjects that matter.
What matters and doesn’t matter is subjective
The same way it’s no longer hip to be on Facebook and kids use Instagram I wonder if we’ll see a day where it’s no longer hip to use the public internet and a new generation prefers a dark or decentralized web
In Neal Stephenson’s latest novel, “Fall; or Dodge in Hell”[0] the Internet degenerates to such an extent that even the least savvy user perceives online material via an “editor”, which is an entity (human or machine) tasked with presenting information to the client in a way that the client would find acceptable. Unsaid goes the implicit bias that would have to govern work products of such editors, which - I suppose - is part of the value prop. You choose the editor to whose methodology you subscribe.
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall;_or,_Dodge_in_Hell
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall;_or,_Dodge_in_Hell
> an “editor”, which is an entity (human or machine) tasked with presenting information to the client in a way that the client would find acceptable.
We usually call this sort of thing a "user agent" FWIW. Your usual web browser is one kind of user agent, but there could be others.
We usually call this sort of thing a "user agent" FWIW. Your usual web browser is one kind of user agent, but there could be others.
No, in the book it’s more like a filtered content stream, only it’s not just the stream that is filtered but also all search results and any other means of discovering internet content.
[deleted]
"I wonder if we’ll see a day where it’s no longer hip to use the public internet"
Replace hip with sane and we can accelerate the transition back to offline content (one way communication) and come to the conclusion that a two-way stream (a direct connection) to crazy is not healthy.
Replace hip with sane and we can accelerate the transition back to offline content (one way communication) and come to the conclusion that a two-way stream (a direct connection) to crazy is not healthy.
Somebody needs a hug. It was not off topic...
"Curated by Crazy" may have better explained the current power struggle online and how low they'll go for your attention (hijack your connection).
How is packaging data in offline formats not more convenient? We have to do something with the gobs of storage and blazing fast transfer speeds while reclaiming our privacy (maintaining control of our attention).
Also, being "always on" allows you to be compromised by netizens far and wide. On-demand has far reaching security benefits.
"Curated by Crazy" may have better explained the current power struggle online and how low they'll go for your attention (hijack your connection).
How is packaging data in offline formats not more convenient? We have to do something with the gobs of storage and blazing fast transfer speeds while reclaiming our privacy (maintaining control of our attention).
Also, being "always on" allows you to be compromised by netizens far and wide. On-demand has far reaching security benefits.
That wouldn't be healthier - I would be unhealth manifest in the same way not being able to stand up under their own power.
Even if a one way digest or hierarchical approach works better in an instance for a scale approach (summarizing to congress or instead of a live feed of literally everyone) a lack of agency is /not/ a good thing.
Sanity is acknowledging reality not hiding away from it.
Even if a one way digest or hierarchical approach works better in an instance for a scale approach (summarizing to congress or instead of a live feed of literally everyone) a lack of agency is /not/ a good thing.
Sanity is acknowledging reality not hiding away from it.
Side note fyi... the "?mod=rsswn" appended to the WSJ url to bypass the paywall stopped working a few weeks ago.
People keep submitting urls with it (and this article's url also has it) so submitters probably don't realize it doesn't actually work anymore.
Also, disabling Javascript on wsj.com also used to work to bypass the paywall but that trick was blocked around the same time they blocked "?mod=rsswn".
One of the workarounds is to emulate behavior of googlebot but I don't think that's easily translatable to a simple modification of the url string: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/issues/...
People keep submitting urls with it (and this article's url also has it) so submitters probably don't realize it doesn't actually work anymore.
Also, disabling Javascript on wsj.com also used to work to bypass the paywall but that trick was blocked around the same time they blocked "?mod=rsswn".
One of the workarounds is to emulate behavior of googlebot but I don't think that's easily translatable to a simple modification of the url string: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/issues/...
For me, the “fullwsj” link that takes you through Facebook still works.
https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/tech-giants-have-hijacked-t...
https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/tech-giants-have-hijacked-t...
It feels like the author was exposed to the rhetoric of the web having been ruined by tech giants due to centralisation, and decided to write an article about that, expecting clicks and views, all without trying to first understand what the people behind such a rhetoric actually mean. I mean the article discusses the issue of a centralised web by stating the russian inference in the US elections. How does that illustrate the centralisation issue of the web platform, and how can a decentralised solution prevent that?
Also the article is only accessible through a subscription, so I couldn't finish it, which is ironic because this is exactly what's broken with today's web.
Also the article is only accessible through a subscription, so I couldn't finish it, which is ironic because this is exactly what's broken with today's web.
I think the author was arguing that the siloing off of internet users, combined with hypersaturated markets is what made that election scandal possible in the first place. To be clear about what I mean by that I am referring to unregulated political advertising that nobody checks. An example of the bad advertising would be: Running an ad campaign referring to the wrong date of the physical vote to a target audience of 9-to-five 18-35 wage workers with kids and no college education hoping that it tricks some percent of them into not voting because they requested the wrong day off. Oops!
People (Ad people) simply noticed that the ads were a communication channel in and of themselves, and using the (for example) facebook tools to lazily target a particular demographic, they got huge numbers of eyeballs. Stir in some classic astroturfing and social-media influencers (Derisively known as shills), likes, comments and you've got a quick minilove and truth. Except even better because anyone with cash who resides in any country on earth can buy in.
The author was pointing out the now obvious fact that "tech companies" look like an information service for connecting friends but are actually ad generating theme parks. Since the value of the data your users bring is only very useful if you have a lot of it, the organizations who have replaced both Nielsen and News Papers have simply followed the incentives and coalesced into larger and larger gravitational bodies. By having all the content, users, tracking pixels, sales data, and ads, it increases the value of all of those things if you can meaningfuly connect them together by engaging with users through next-generation enterprise-grade disruptive orthogonal innovation at-scale.
They're saying a centralized web is more valuable to its corporate sponsors, because when there are fewer places you need to advertise or track/monetize user data in this world, the corporate value compounds even more. Likewise abusing these themeparks will be even more effective, because whatever mechanism sells soda pop will likely also sell antidepresants and anything else.
Walking into the stables might get you a big sack of oats, but you wont find anything other than what they hand over the gate.
People (Ad people) simply noticed that the ads were a communication channel in and of themselves, and using the (for example) facebook tools to lazily target a particular demographic, they got huge numbers of eyeballs. Stir in some classic astroturfing and social-media influencers (Derisively known as shills), likes, comments and you've got a quick minilove and truth. Except even better because anyone with cash who resides in any country on earth can buy in.
The author was pointing out the now obvious fact that "tech companies" look like an information service for connecting friends but are actually ad generating theme parks. Since the value of the data your users bring is only very useful if you have a lot of it, the organizations who have replaced both Nielsen and News Papers have simply followed the incentives and coalesced into larger and larger gravitational bodies. By having all the content, users, tracking pixels, sales data, and ads, it increases the value of all of those things if you can meaningfuly connect them together by engaging with users through next-generation enterprise-grade disruptive orthogonal innovation at-scale.
They're saying a centralized web is more valuable to its corporate sponsors, because when there are fewer places you need to advertise or track/monetize user data in this world, the corporate value compounds even more. Likewise abusing these themeparks will be even more effective, because whatever mechanism sells soda pop will likely also sell antidepresants and anything else.
Walking into the stables might get you a big sack of oats, but you wont find anything other than what they hand over the gate.
Thanks for reporting back about what is discussed in the rest of the article. I still think the author is confused about two different things: popularity and centralisation. The issue is not that now, a bunch of very few popular services is where most of online activity happens, the issue is that these services have access to users’ data and privacy, by design, and most of all, they are not censorship resistant.
>the author is confused about two different things: popularity and centralisation.
I strongly disagree. the author has noted the connection between popularity and centralization and points out its impressive drawbacks. The pluses are disruptive corporate profitability, the minus makes Church and Pike look like Tuskegee. Or maybe the other way around.
I strongly disagree. the author has noted the connection between popularity and centralization and points out its impressive drawbacks. The pluses are disruptive corporate profitability, the minus makes Church and Pike look like Tuskegee. Or maybe the other way around.
The bigger problem at times of elections is that every idiot now has an amplifier the strength of which allows them to reach the rest of their country, including all like thinking idiots. This makes idiots less likely to change their mind based on their environment because they feel vindicated in their beliefs.
Honest question for you: how is this different from criticisms of the early days of the printing press?
Which criticisms are you referring to?
> every idiot now has an amplifier the strength of which allows them to reach the rest of their country, including all like thinking idiots
I think the actual problem isn’t the idiot (the issue isn’t that different from having access to a printing press a few years ago - in order to reach a considerable audience in both cases you would need a good amount of capital in the first place), the problem is the fact that it’s hard to tell for ad consumers if these ads are right or wrong, these ads are also shown inline with the usual flow of information they accept as true and that the users are rarely informed about how well targeted these ads are.
> these ads are also shown inline with the usual flow of information they accept as true
Accepting this flow of information as true does indeed seem like idiocy
Accepting this flow of information as true does indeed seem like idiocy
But misinformation in advertisements is illegal in many countries and so is misrepresenting information as actual information rather than it being ads.
Provable misinformation is legal, which is a much higher bar. That's why we'd consider it insane if someone took (legal) ads at face value and believed all their claims.
Part (or the whole?) of the problem is the amplifier isn't reaching the "rest" of the country, but rather selectively isolating who does and does not receive the message. Newspapers were visible to all. When I pick up a broadsheet to read I know that I'm choosing a particular source of information; and choosing not to read a different source. But I'm aware that there are other newspapers and that knowledge influences how I weigh what I read compared to what other people are reading.
Two people who live near each other, work together, shop at the same stores, send their children to the same school, et al, will have completely different experiences when they go on the internet. And each person's experience is hidden from the other, so there is no way for one person to get a glimpse of how the other is seeing their news. That means if those two people were to talk to each other about what they've seen on the internet, they will be confounded by the lack of common experience. What shared experiences exist are likely banal topics such as sports or movies. Each person will be convinced that their knowledge is the dominant viewpoint because it's the majority of the things they find on the web. It's the other guy who is missing the big picture.
Instead of me choosing the newspaper. It's the newspaper choosing me.
Two people who live near each other, work together, shop at the same stores, send their children to the same school, et al, will have completely different experiences when they go on the internet. And each person's experience is hidden from the other, so there is no way for one person to get a glimpse of how the other is seeing their news. That means if those two people were to talk to each other about what they've seen on the internet, they will be confounded by the lack of common experience. What shared experiences exist are likely banal topics such as sports or movies. Each person will be convinced that their knowledge is the dominant viewpoint because it's the majority of the things they find on the web. It's the other guy who is missing the big picture.
Instead of me choosing the newspaper. It's the newspaper choosing me.
Right, and my point is this is the exact same argument the church, and other centralized publishing powers at the time, made about the printing press:
Imagine there being competing interpretations of God? How could we form a community? Wont people have completely different experiences in life if they don't have the same experience with God? If we let someone get exposed to the "bad media" before they are exposed to the "good media" how will they ever know what the "good media" is? Can someone please think of the children?
It turns out not a lot of people are actually in favor of freedom when push comes to shove.
Imagine there being competing interpretations of God? How could we form a community? Wont people have completely different experiences in life if they don't have the same experience with God? If we let someone get exposed to the "bad media" before they are exposed to the "good media" how will they ever know what the "good media" is? Can someone please think of the children?
It turns out not a lot of people are actually in favor of freedom when push comes to shove.
Right, all this hysteria about tech companies' irresponsibility is simply "how dare you give the average person an easier route to expressing themselves and connecting to each other". Hell, it might not even be wrong that this is a bad thing[1], but the discourse around it is so dishonest.
[1] There's long been a place in political philosophy for acknowledging that it's possible for the masses to have too much direct power
[1] There's long been a place in political philosophy for acknowledging that it's possible for the masses to have too much direct power
Except news isn't religion. The fake news sources will have you believe that their lies are of equal stature as others' facts.
If you're talking about a central authority choosing what information people get to see, wouldn't that make Facebook and their algorithm the Church in this situation?
If you're talking about a central authority choosing what information people get to see, wouldn't that make Facebook and their algorithm the Church in this situation?
> The fake news sources will have you believe that their lies are of equal stature as others' facts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism
> news isn't religion
Anecdotally it feels that way in modern society.
Ask a random person if they believe Fox news.
Anecdotally it feels that way in modern society.
Ask a random person if they believe Fox news.
The irony....
This really is the cherry on top. Thanks to the influence of a centralized tech giant whose services are invaluable to WSJ, and who indexes the open web, we can get equal access to WSJ's centralized resources that they wanted to pretend were open, when it came to Google crawlers.
A centralized register is more valuable to those who need access and control, also true for malicious actors of the unwanted kind; a single transformation can affect the whole or precisely targeted parts.
This is a much harder task in a scenario of multiple interconnected systems of varied design. They represent parallel solutions to the same problem; implementation and values.
Compare to the necessity of genetic variation in agriculture, a single fungus or virus can now do more damage due to uniformity from optimization. Eventually we will (through trial and error?) probably figure out why nature is organized the way it is.
This is a much harder task in a scenario of multiple interconnected systems of varied design. They represent parallel solutions to the same problem; implementation and values.
Compare to the necessity of genetic variation in agriculture, a single fungus or virus can now do more damage due to uniformity from optimization. Eventually we will (through trial and error?) probably figure out why nature is organized the way it is.
You think that being required to pay in order to consume a good that was produced is what’s broken with the web?
> Also the article is only accessible through a subscription, so I couldn't finish it, which is ironic because this is exactly what's broken with today's web.
Do you work for free?
Do you have proof of a better business model?
Do you work for free?
Do you have proof of a better business model?
I don't agree with your assumption that OP thinks the author shouldn't be paid for this article.
But having to subscribe to the whole newspaper to read text that is accessible for free if coming from a different referrer - for example Google - is something that sound broken to me.
Aside from OP assumptions - IMHO, if online news companies were happy with ad model, which was barely one cent per view - why not try a model sort of equivalent.[0]
I might be a minority, but I have an Apple News+ subscription[1]. If Apple created a browser extension that allowed me to browse the same content they let me in the News app, I would be pretty happy with that. And I'd bet I wouldn't be the only one.
[0]: Please spare responding with examples of "X Micro-payment" company that failed. This works best with agreements between major players. Not, "here's the Github, add it to your site" (not that I disagree with that model entirely)
[1]: I subscribed to News+ mostly for the tech and art magazines. It's barely usable at best unless - and probably even if - you are using a Magic Trackpad or an iPad. No two page full screen scrolling, and the weirdest, most unintuitive, slowest page navigation UX I have ever eXperienced for any reader. If you aren't using a touch mouse, horizontal navigation is a mini-game.
But having to subscribe to the whole newspaper to read text that is accessible for free if coming from a different referrer - for example Google - is something that sound broken to me.
Aside from OP assumptions - IMHO, if online news companies were happy with ad model, which was barely one cent per view - why not try a model sort of equivalent.[0]
I might be a minority, but I have an Apple News+ subscription[1]. If Apple created a browser extension that allowed me to browse the same content they let me in the News app, I would be pretty happy with that. And I'd bet I wouldn't be the only one.
[0]: Please spare responding with examples of "X Micro-payment" company that failed. This works best with agreements between major players. Not, "here's the Github, add it to your site" (not that I disagree with that model entirely)
[1]: I subscribed to News+ mostly for the tech and art magazines. It's barely usable at best unless - and probably even if - you are using a Magic Trackpad or an iPad. No two page full screen scrolling, and the weirdest, most unintuitive, slowest page navigation UX I have ever eXperienced for any reader. If you aren't using a touch mouse, horizontal navigation is a mini-game.
I'm not saying the content should be given away for free, I'm just observing the ironic case of what sounds like a call to action to "save" the web ("Time for a reboot") being hidden behind a paywall.
I personally find the subscription model to be broken, I can't economically subscribe to the wsj, the nytimes, washingtonpost, etc. I'll also probably only read one article of each per month on average so it's not even interesting to me as a deal.
It will be interesting to see the evolution of movies and tv shows streaming now with Apple, netflix, amazon, disney all offering a subscription service with exclusive content. My guess is that pirating is coming back.
I personally find the subscription model to be broken, I can't economically subscribe to the wsj, the nytimes, washingtonpost, etc. I'll also probably only read one article of each per month on average so it's not even interesting to me as a deal.
It will be interesting to see the evolution of movies and tv shows streaming now with Apple, netflix, amazon, disney all offering a subscription service with exclusive content. My guess is that pirating is coming back.
I really wanted to read this, but was a little disappointed by the exceptionally high level of the reporting...I mean, this would have been a nice intro several years ago...But now, i assumed this is somewhat common knowledge. But, perhaps i should not assume this. That being said, i am inspired by the numerous decentralization efforts - e.g. SOLID, fediverse/activityPub (pleroma, mastodon, pixelfed, etc.), scuttlebutt, matrix, and so on, and so on.
> I mean, this would have been a nice intro several years ago...But now, i assumed this is somewhat common knowledge
It's the WSJ, they're not writing for a technical or particularly tech-savvy audience
It's the WSJ, they're not writing for a technical or particularly tech-savvy audience
Businesses gonna business. Can’t really blame them for exploiting the artificial bottlenecks created by the lazy thoughtless corner-cutting geeks who (ostensibly) designed the thing. To copy-paste myself (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21181707):
--
HTTP hyperlinks FTF. Vannevar Bush hypothesized much a higher-level “mesh of associative trails”, with relationships formed directly and largely automatically. The closest today’s WWW has gotten to this is search engines, but again these are centralized, controlled, and first and foremost in service to vendor, not users.
However, I would argue a far greater problem was the early lack of editability; Berners-Lee originally conceived of his WWW as a network of editable documents, where every user could read and write with equal ease. His prototype web browser was, to use a desktop analogy, a “Word for the Web”; a true web editor, Opening and Saving documents stored online, just as Microsoft Word directly opens and saves documents stored locally.
But Tim got lazy and impatient, and shipped his first public browser as a cut-down web viewer. Which Mosaic then copied; and, before anyone knew any different, the web was recast as a read-only medium of the masses, with web editing the exclusive domain of technical and corporate elites only.
A single thoughtless corner-cutting mistake, creating an artificial bottleneck upon which trillion-dollar global empires have now been built. You can still see the remnants of the original direct interaction model in HTTP’s PUT and DELETE verbs, like the hindlimbs in a blue whale, rendered just as powerless from the ignorance and avarice of this new web’s Intelligent Design.
Tony Hoare named NULL his billion-dollar mistake, but that’s a rounding error on the scale of TBL’s fuckup.
--
Which isn’t to say that had the web’s architects not completely FUBARed manual document editing/publishing and automated relationship-building that various self-interested parties wouldn’t have locked it up in other ways.
But look at SOAP and Dropbox and even Facebook; were the basic building blocks working as designed, none of those would exist because the key services they provide are just standard everyday operations that a correctly-functioning web would already provide to everyone for free. But they don’t, so again and again we end up with this instead:
https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The_Inner-Platform_Effect
Honestly, our modern “web” can make a Matryoshka doll blush, it’s so anything but.
--
HTTP hyperlinks FTF. Vannevar Bush hypothesized much a higher-level “mesh of associative trails”, with relationships formed directly and largely automatically. The closest today’s WWW has gotten to this is search engines, but again these are centralized, controlled, and first and foremost in service to vendor, not users.
However, I would argue a far greater problem was the early lack of editability; Berners-Lee originally conceived of his WWW as a network of editable documents, where every user could read and write with equal ease. His prototype web browser was, to use a desktop analogy, a “Word for the Web”; a true web editor, Opening and Saving documents stored online, just as Microsoft Word directly opens and saves documents stored locally.
But Tim got lazy and impatient, and shipped his first public browser as a cut-down web viewer. Which Mosaic then copied; and, before anyone knew any different, the web was recast as a read-only medium of the masses, with web editing the exclusive domain of technical and corporate elites only.
A single thoughtless corner-cutting mistake, creating an artificial bottleneck upon which trillion-dollar global empires have now been built. You can still see the remnants of the original direct interaction model in HTTP’s PUT and DELETE verbs, like the hindlimbs in a blue whale, rendered just as powerless from the ignorance and avarice of this new web’s Intelligent Design.
Tony Hoare named NULL his billion-dollar mistake, but that’s a rounding error on the scale of TBL’s fuckup.
--
Which isn’t to say that had the web’s architects not completely FUBARed manual document editing/publishing and automated relationship-building that various self-interested parties wouldn’t have locked it up in other ways.
But look at SOAP and Dropbox and even Facebook; were the basic building blocks working as designed, none of those would exist because the key services they provide are just standard everyday operations that a correctly-functioning web would already provide to everyone for free. But they don’t, so again and again we end up with this instead:
https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The_Inner-Platform_Effect
Honestly, our modern “web” can make a Matryoshka doll blush, it’s so anything but.
More accurately, users want easy above and beyond anything else. "Tech giants" are giants because users use them. https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebo...
Don't get me wrong: I agree with the rhetoric against tech giants. But in real life, looking at measurable behavior, no one cares.
Don't get me wrong: I agree with the rhetoric against tech giants. But in real life, looking at measurable behavior, no one cares.
Facebook is a giant because people use it but also people use it because of their size (everybody is there!).
Written on the WSJ site not a blog no less.
My theory is that one way to reclaim the web is to place more emphasis on individuals and their contributions, and less emphasis on platforms and their opinions. Additionally, there needs to be sustainable business models where the end user's incentives are aligned with the platform's. People are willing to pay for things they want if there's real value for them.
I'd like to see platforms act as utilities, not systems for enforcing opinions or curating content. I want to be given the tools to decide for myself what type of content I see, who gets to contact me, and I don't want to be force fed ads.
I'd like to see platforms act as utilities, not systems for enforcing opinions or curating content. I want to be given the tools to decide for myself what type of content I see, who gets to contact me, and I don't want to be force fed ads.
>People are willing to pay for things they want if there's real value for them
Are you suggesting there is a way to make people pay to use these platforms? If you are, I call BS.
How are you going to get 2 billion people to pay enough for social media use, that those payments can cover the costs of planet wide network and infrastructure supporting 2 billion people?
Are you suggesting there is a way to make people pay to use these platforms? If you are, I call BS.
How are you going to get 2 billion people to pay enough for social media use, that those payments can cover the costs of planet wide network and infrastructure supporting 2 billion people?
Sounds like applying a Wikipedia-esque model to social media? I like it.
People always talk about the “network effects” of Facebook or Twitter - but what about the network effect of the Web itself? How has that failed so spectacularly? For a while it seemed like we took the route of competing standards that defined the network (RSS, Atom, WebSub, REST) but there seems to be no taste for any of the new connecting protocols (Webmentions, ActivityPub) that could enhance the Web’s connective tissue.
Whereas community on the Web used to be a favorite hobbyist PHPBB forum or mailing list - it’s now just a business. (Are you on Instagram or TikTok?)
Whereas community on the Web used to be a favorite hobbyist PHPBB forum or mailing list - it’s now just a business. (Are you on Instagram or TikTok?)
The web collectively failed to provide a single authentication token. Unlike mobile phones, where the phone numbers are not controlled by one entity, in the web some companies jumped in and grabbed them all. It's still sad to see that despite multiple protocols, despite open source browser, despite distributed trustless databases, we need to sign up to each service with our email or with FB connect.
For anything in that space to catch on though, it will have to provide a benefit to the webmater. Facebook provided visibility and extensive distribution, that's why so many media chose to move their content in there
For anything in that space to catch on though, it will have to provide a benefit to the webmater. Facebook provided visibility and extensive distribution, that's why so many media chose to move their content in there
Interesting points - like the comparison to mobile phone numbers. You’d think that an open account system could provide even more visibility - because you’re not just posting on a closed network.
I think if Facebook was just an account system or just a discovery mechanism, then it could be amazing. It just sucks that every network tries to do it all - and in a closed way.
I think if Facebook was just an account system or just a discovery mechanism, then it could be amazing. It just sucks that every network tries to do it all - and in a closed way.
Firefox should bundle something like metamask in the browser. Not only you will have a trustless identification mechanism for multiple identities, but users will also use it for micropayments.
I think a lot of the privacy and mob mentality issues stem from the fact that current systems don't support multiple disconnected, pseudonymous identities, which we had ~15 years ago. We should make it easy for laypeople to have that again.
I don't know if decentralizing the web is worth the effort since it's less efficient. We need however to steal back identity from those identity barons.
I think a lot of the privacy and mob mentality issues stem from the fact that current systems don't support multiple disconnected, pseudonymous identities, which we had ~15 years ago. We should make it easy for laypeople to have that again.
I don't know if decentralizing the web is worth the effort since it's less efficient. We need however to steal back identity from those identity barons.
Firefox tried decentralised identity via the Persona protocol. It failed to gain market traction and Mozilla canned the project.
Email is already the decentralised identity protocol.
Email is already the decentralised identity protocol.
i think it isn't and that s why i think we need Persona, but without the email-account requirement. Plus mozilla canned the project too early and without ever really trying to push for it, as if they didnt want adoption.
I think such a system is needed, we need to teach people that they are in control of their identity and that it is independent of facebook. Kind of like how mobile apps do it with numbers.
I think such a system is needed, we need to teach people that they are in control of their identity and that it is independent of facebook. Kind of like how mobile apps do it with numbers.
> multiple disconnected, pseudonymous identities
Oh I’m with you.
Oh I’m with you.
>Whereas community on the Web used to be a favorite hobbyist PHPBB forum or mailing list - it’s now just a business. (Are you on Instagram or TikTok?)
I think you're mixing up the medium and the message here a bit. There's still plenty of "community" on third-party platforms. Just because the hobbyists are on Reddit now rather than someone's PHPBB instance running on a shared host doesn't mean the nature of the community being hosted has become fundamentally more commercial.
I think you're mixing up the medium and the message here a bit. There's still plenty of "community" on third-party platforms. Just because the hobbyists are on Reddit now rather than someone's PHPBB instance running on a shared host doesn't mean the nature of the community being hosted has become fundamentally more commercial.
I appreciate you responding - I think my comment must have been too garbled - I'm not just trying to demonize business for some arbitrary anti-capitalist reason or something. What I am questioning is the nature of the network - not to get caught up in nostalgia, but at least the Web used to be comprised of an infinite variety of communities. However, generally speaking, no one will join your custom forum or community in 2019 because it's not contained in one of these networks. They've become both the hosting and the discovery engines. They are self-contained networks. I'm trying to sort out how we went from a giant, flexible network to a bunch of shittier smaller, isolated networks.
I can pull up some reasons people cite (ease of use, mobile apps, network effects) but at the same time, it feels like the sentiment of the masses acknowledges that these networks are shitty.
I can pull up some reasons people cite (ease of use, mobile apps, network effects) but at the same time, it feels like the sentiment of the masses acknowledges that these networks are shitty.
>not to get caught up in nostalgia, but at least the Web used to be comprised of an infinite variety of communities.
But there are more, and more varied, communities on the Web now than there ever have been... the Web has grown, not shrunk, over the years.
Also, even on the "old" web, most people tended to gravitate towards a few sites.
>I'm trying to sort out how we went from a giant, flexible network to a bunch of shittier smaller, isolated networks.
I think for reasons similar to why a country can have a sprawling network of highways and roads connecting lots of cities and small towns, each with its own unique culture and history, but most people will still tend to gravitate towards a few large cities.
Social media sites did a better job of providing the features that people who weren't interested in web development actually wanted, and they're designed to host millions or billions of people, as opposed to smaller forums. In other words, the infrastructure was better.
Most people care more about convenience and functionality than they do the openness of a network, or even where it's hosted. Most people just want a curated network of friends to talk to, share things with and a place to publish content. And whatever negatives the silos might bring, they do make the "networking" part of a social network ridiculously easy. Add network effects to that and I think it's easy to see why they won.
>it feels like the sentiment of the masses acknowledges that these networks are shitty.
People leave these networks for other, similar networks that serve the same needs, or different niche needs, but those needs are still currently better served by centralized networks. They're not rejecting the model itself, just specific implementations.
But there are more, and more varied, communities on the Web now than there ever have been... the Web has grown, not shrunk, over the years.
Also, even on the "old" web, most people tended to gravitate towards a few sites.
>I'm trying to sort out how we went from a giant, flexible network to a bunch of shittier smaller, isolated networks.
I think for reasons similar to why a country can have a sprawling network of highways and roads connecting lots of cities and small towns, each with its own unique culture and history, but most people will still tend to gravitate towards a few large cities.
Social media sites did a better job of providing the features that people who weren't interested in web development actually wanted, and they're designed to host millions or billions of people, as opposed to smaller forums. In other words, the infrastructure was better.
Most people care more about convenience and functionality than they do the openness of a network, or even where it's hosted. Most people just want a curated network of friends to talk to, share things with and a place to publish content. And whatever negatives the silos might bring, they do make the "networking" part of a social network ridiculously easy. Add network effects to that and I think it's easy to see why they won.
>it feels like the sentiment of the masses acknowledges that these networks are shitty.
People leave these networks for other, similar networks that serve the same needs, or different niche needs, but those needs are still currently better served by centralized networks. They're not rejecting the model itself, just specific implementations.
Sure - I can see why social media took hold - but that's the perspective we've been trapped in for the last decade. You can easily shake yourself free and see that these networks are just one way of arranging things (like you say - like a "city" or like tenant housing) and that they are, quite simply, shitty. :)
I mean where do we go from here? I think if you view social media positively, then you just continue down the current road - another new app icon, another dot-com, another account, some new video gimmick to go along with it - but I wonder if it's possible to shift the perspective back to the Web as the network - and protocols as the connecting tissue. I wish I could easily follow what my sisters or parents or friends are doing - but they are all on separate shitty closed networks now.
I mean where do we go from here? I think if you view social media positively, then you just continue down the current road - another new app icon, another dot-com, another account, some new video gimmick to go along with it - but I wonder if it's possible to shift the perspective back to the Web as the network - and protocols as the connecting tissue. I wish I could easily follow what my sisters or parents or friends are doing - but they are all on separate shitty closed networks now.
> I'm trying to sort out how we went from a giant, flexible network to a bunch of shittier smaller, isolated networks.
A bunch of shittier smaller isolated networks sounds exactly like what we transitioned away from, you yourself bringing up phpbb. Are you asking why people don't want to register for yet another silo'd community every time they want to talk about a different subject? Or why people may want to talk about their cycling hobby here and there but aren't so fanatical about it that they want to register for bikeforums.com nor mingle with the zealots that post there?
Just sounds like you're romanticizing something that wasn't all that great for most people. A lot of those types of forums still exist, btw. Probably even more than ever. I run one. My forum fills a niche that doesn't translate well to a place like reddit (longform collaborative writing). These communities are still here for the people looking for them, but it's no mystery to me why they have limited appeal.
Frankly, the modern web has enabled more people to participate that aren't as nerdy or fanatic about a niche nor willing to jump through hoops like joining a new forum with its own rules and nobody they know irl. Not everything is going to shit, there are simply always trade-offs.
A bunch of shittier smaller isolated networks sounds exactly like what we transitioned away from, you yourself bringing up phpbb. Are you asking why people don't want to register for yet another silo'd community every time they want to talk about a different subject? Or why people may want to talk about their cycling hobby here and there but aren't so fanatical about it that they want to register for bikeforums.com nor mingle with the zealots that post there?
Just sounds like you're romanticizing something that wasn't all that great for most people. A lot of those types of forums still exist, btw. Probably even more than ever. I run one. My forum fills a niche that doesn't translate well to a place like reddit (longform collaborative writing). These communities are still here for the people looking for them, but it's no mystery to me why they have limited appeal.
Frankly, the modern web has enabled more people to participate that aren't as nerdy or fanatic about a niche nor willing to jump through hoops like joining a new forum with its own rules and nobody they know irl. Not everything is going to shit, there are simply always trade-offs.
Yeah, I'm really not doing a great job here. By 'network' I mean that the Web is the network. I'm not romanticizing needing separate accounts for every topic. I'm not sure how to isolate the part that I am romanticizing from the part that I'm not. :D
I mean let's say we forked the Web before social media and simply had unified accounts for the variety of small sites we participated in. That seems like progress to me.
I mean let's say we forked the Web before social media and simply had unified accounts for the variety of small sites we participated in. That seems like progress to me.
> mean let's say we forked the Web before social media and simply had unified accounts for the variety of small sites we participated in. That seems like progress to me.
That wouldn't stop the network effect of social media, or centralization. Facebook, Twitter, etc. would still be built and people would still congregate to them, just using whatever their "unified accounts" were.
And remember, Google tried unifying accounts with G+, albeit just within their network. One day everyone on Youtube found their G+ comments merged with their Youtube comments because Google decided Youtube was just the video-sharing part of G+, and a lot of real names and data were exposed, because the two platforms were designed around completely different social paradigms. The obvious questions with something like a unified account is who controls them and defines the standard, and how do you make the rest of the web comply with using them?
All of the potential problems of centralization are still there, anywhere you have an attempt at a common standard.
That wouldn't stop the network effect of social media, or centralization. Facebook, Twitter, etc. would still be built and people would still congregate to them, just using whatever their "unified accounts" were.
And remember, Google tried unifying accounts with G+, albeit just within their network. One day everyone on Youtube found their G+ comments merged with their Youtube comments because Google decided Youtube was just the video-sharing part of G+, and a lot of real names and data were exposed, because the two platforms were designed around completely different social paradigms. The obvious questions with something like a unified account is who controls them and defines the standard, and how do you make the rest of the web comply with using them?
All of the potential problems of centralization are still there, anywhere you have an attempt at a common standard.
Sure, it’s fine if these networks exist - I understand that people like Twitter and identify with it, even if I can’t fathom it. It’s just that they all close themselves off to interoperating with the Web.
I’m not trying to make a strict decentralization argument either - it’s just this draconian closedness to the larger network. (At least we’ve been able to hang on to email - imagine if we had separate email networks!) RSS and REST were great advances - and then our good open protocols stopped or something. Thank you for reading and responding, though.
I’m not trying to make a strict decentralization argument either - it’s just this draconian closedness to the larger network. (At least we’ve been able to hang on to email - imagine if we had separate email networks!) RSS and REST were great advances - and then our good open protocols stopped or something. Thank you for reading and responding, though.
Turns out there's a lot more money in walled gardens than there is in services that are easily accessed by common protocols. Thus there's a perverse incentive at play from the perspective of end users.
I see - because you "own" the people in the garden.
[deleted]
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/23/opinion/data-...
people should get paid whenever their information is used
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/delete-your-account-a-co...