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Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

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Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#141

Post by austenallred »

Honestly? I'm not doing a damn thing. Forgive me for this, but the internet has been a walled garden for some time now, and the vast majority of humans just don't care. I haven't seen anything that's going to change that. The Internet requires a login, and your privacy being dead is a foregone conclusion.

It's easy to trash Facebook, but clearly it provides an insane amount of utility, and people aren't willing to stop using it because of others saying that en masse that is bad for a hypothetical Internet they never really took part in anyway.

IMO the focus should be getting the government to keep its hands off of it. That's not only more possible, but infinitely more important than not letting Facebook try to show us the right ads.

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#142

Post by ptr_void »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #72

What I'm getting from this thread is that we're sort of fucked. The only way to stop Facebook and Google was to become them before they had a chance to. That way you'd presumably be more benevolent. Maybe that's true for Facebook, but it's still hard to imagine for Google. I think the bigger problem is cross-generational power. YC itself is somewhat terrifying in this regard, but that's a different topic. In regards…

Software is easy to copy and replace. There's little, if any, monopolization of software technology resources. Software doesn't require huge investment/over-head like oil industry. I don't think FB/Google/etc. provide much of anything (or of high value like oil) that is not already replaceable by million other alternatives. One of their key business model is selling ads spaces, but adblocks are also on the rise.

I wouldn't bet too highly on those services.

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#143

Post by sumeno »

sjg007 wrote: post #125
kakarot wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but what about the other 99% of the population who are too busy to completely learn ops and opsec? My mom isn't going to leave facebook to make her own website and host her own email, even if you give her all the tutorials in the world.

Website in a box (docker), put it wherever. This might be a good idea.

Why would my mother do that instead of just using Facebook which is already there and already had all of her friends and family on it?

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#144

Post by [deleted] »

paulddraper wrote: post #117
delegate wrote: post #84

There is no going back, this 'battle' was lost a long time ago. We've tried so hard to make technology ubiquitous and accessible to everyone . We thought that that was a good idea at the time, except we didn't really understand it entirely. The consequence of ubiquitous technology is that the majority now has access to powerful tools to 'express' themselves while being subjected to constant brainwashing into behaving…

Forgive me if I exaggerate, but you sound a chef who is appalled by the lack of variety in fruits and vegetables distributed at a shelter. Billions of people can communicate and learn in ways never before possible. This is overall A Very Good Thing.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#145

Post by bhhaskin »

haburka wrote: post #68
bhhaskin wrote: post #20

I think the solution is pretty simple. Keep building things. Make person websites and build communities. Don't host everything on major hosting providers like Google or Amazon. Don't rely on Facebook or Google for login or integrations. They only have so much power because we let them. It's more often than not the easier solution. Use tools like GPG, IRC, Email and encourage your friends and family to do the same. Th…

What's wrong with hosting on Google/Amazon? I understand that there is a paranoia of them taking control of your servers or stealing all of your data, but that is almost certainly not going to happen. I think the real issue is that they're monopolizing services that non developers use.

It's less about them taking control and stealing data and more about spreading out. If we keep only choosing Google/Amazon then one day there will be no more competitors. There are also plenty of good competitors for smaller/personal projects.

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#146

Post by austenallred »

a1exyz wrote: post #134

I believe that the internet is powerful because it connects us to people rather than content. My dream is for our portal into the internet (currently google or Facebook) to become a search engine for people. I am interested in x. This person is the top authority on x. Here is a chat window. You can ask it questions that his/her bot will answer at first (to save this person from being spammed). However, eventually if…

Honestly what you just described is pretty much Facebook.

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#147

Post by jeeshan »

To foresee the perils of a closed internet, look at healthcare.

Instead of using open standards, most of our medical data is trapped in proprietary vendor systems that are at best antiquated.

Patients are unable to move their data easily, doctors and hospitals have to pay huge sums to access their own data. The vendors extract massive rents but were all left in the dark and our health suffers

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#148

Post by bhhaskin »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #139
bogomipz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Don't rely on Facebook or Google for login or integrations." I think this is a really important point. When I see services that give me a choice of either 1)logging in with Google or 2) logging in with FB, I don't do either. I simply elect to not use that service.

For me and my students -- we always use a google login. With 35 students all using 4 or 5 online services each with a login.... There is no way we can keep control of all those separate login details. There needs to be a central control over login. Sure, login details are pretty old skool bonkers. I'm going to get downvoted to oblivion, but in the real world where I have to hand a class of 35 students over to another…

Why not use another single sign on service? Why do you have to use Google? Google is the largest advertiser in the world, and is more and more encroaching on the free and open web.

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#150

Post by [deleted] »

worldsayshi wrote: post #106
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #72

What I'm getting from this thread is that we're sort of fucked. The only way to stop Facebook and Google was to become them before they had a chance to. That way you'd presumably be more benevolent. Maybe that's true for Facebook, but it's still hard to imagine for Google. I think the bigger problem is cross-generational power. YC itself is somewhat terrifying in this regard, but that's a different topic. In regards…

I think that this doesn't have to be true at all. Because of slow but inevitable commodification of the core technological concepts that make up their edge toward the rest of the market. Open source search engines are still years behind what Google can do, but those technologies are much nimbler and easier to customize. Reactive paradigms, dockerization, open source tools for machine learning. Such tools might benefi…

[deleted]
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