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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?

#231

Post by [deleted] »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #206
paulddraper wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it's good on balance, but am also scared about the dangers ahead, and around us. I'm sure when the tractor was invented, some bright minds realized this was going to be the end of small farms, and that some day we'd be eating manufactured food product out of a tube, having long forgotten the art of cultivating a rich breadbasket for your family. They would've been right, of course, we've lost our health and o…

[deleted]

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

#232

Post by [deleted] »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #206
paulddraper wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it's good on balance, but am also scared about the dangers ahead, and around us. I'm sure when the tractor was invented, some bright minds realized this was going to be the end of small farms, and that some day we'd be eating manufactured food product out of a tube, having long forgotten the art of cultivating a rich breadbasket for your family. They would've been right, of course, we've lost our health and o…

[deleted]

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

#233

Post by nextlevelwizard »

mirimir wrote: post #186
sumeno wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because maybe Facebook nukes her account, for whatever reason.

When has this actually happened? And by this I mean that out of nowhere Facebook suddenly has deleted someone's page and then not restored it?

I get what you are suggesting, but I can't help but to think you are making this way bigger issue than it actually is.

Also all of you are missing the most obvious point: if it hasn't happened to a lot (and I mean literally more than 10-20% of user base) it is not a significant risk and thus spending extra effort for literally no gain (and actually probably more of a loss in views/users/buyers/whatever) is not worth paying someone to design you a website and paying for updates and then A) paying for (yet another) 3rd party company to host your website B) learning how to setup, host, update, and maintain your own website.

I'm sure most of people on this site could easily setup their own website and run it wherever, but the reason why people are paying you to do such things for living means that most people can't be bothered to learn all the necessary skills.

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

#234

Post by stretchwithme »

Just because there are closed houses in the US doesn't mean I can't travel from coast to coast. Or build my own house with whatever rules I want.

If, instead, I had no freedom to build a house at all or the rules were dictated to me by others, I would be less free. And poorer.

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

#235

Post by aswanson »

Bakary wrote: post #228
aswanson wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just look at the number of 'zombies' on the streets Get used to the zombies...they are going to become far more prevalent. When Neuralink or whatever technologies converge to directly project experiences mind-to-mind, people will not be broadcasting selfies...they will be broadcasting self , as in their current, total sensate experience. People will tune in and live the most exciting virtual life that they need...whi…

To be honest, many people live lives of "quiet desperation" so to them this doesn't sound much more dystopic than the cards they were already dealt.

My statement was not meant to be taken as a judgement insomuch as a prediction of what's shortly to come.

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

#236

Post by nextlevelwizard »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #206
paulddraper wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it's good on balance, but am also scared about the dangers ahead, and around us. I'm sure when the tractor was invented, some bright minds realized this was going to be the end of small farms, and that some day we'd be eating manufactured food product out of a tube, having long forgotten the art of cultivating a rich breadbasket for your family. They would've been right, of course, we've lost our health and o…

So... Can I assume you are doing something about this? Like are you going to buy a farm and start "cultivating rich breadbaskets"? If answer is anything, but: "Yes" followed by a planned date, then you are just blowing out air. It's easy to say "hurdur we used to be close to earth and things were so much better" from your yoga mat using latest MacBook Pro, but unless you are actually getting up at the crack of dawn to work on fields you have no idea how much work goes into farming.

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

#237

Post by nextlevelwizard »

krupan wrote: post #163
pascalxus wrote: post #160

I've seen a lot of good comments on this page, but we really need to start looking at the problem from a customer's point of view. Why should the end user care about this problem? Have you heard your non-entreprenuer/engineer friends or others online complain about this problem? If the answer to above two questions is Negative, then the problem/pain point simply is not large enough to fix. And, as a potential success…

It's getting there. Facebook is now a monopoly and is not improving their service in ways that benefit the users, they have no need to. They are only working to keep you locked in and to serve those who actually pay the bills, advertisers.

You didn't actually answer the question(s).

So what if Facebook as stagnated with user features? Why should your average Joe care? It's already serving their purposes, most if not all of their friends and relatives are on the platform. Again why is this bad for the end user?

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

#238

Post by Pxtl »

doke01 wrote: post #60

Make your website of record your website. Make social media platforms and others (e.g. Google) secondary to that. Don't let Google and Facebook control how you build your website. I am amazed at companies that take their websites and subjugate them to their Facebook page. You may gain social attention but you are handing over control. Never, ever, ever say to contact me go to facebook.com/xxxx or my email address is…

I was with you until logins. I'm tired of creating accounts and managing umpteen million passwords.

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

#239

Post by nextlevelwizard »

Fezzik wrote: post #56
Tharkun wrote: post #42

My biggest gripe with the "modern internet" is e-mail. MS and Google dominate the e-mail scene, and they are making it ever more unpleasant to run your own mailserver. They will frequently blackhole mails, without bounces, warnings or any recourse. I'm not sure what can be done about that, but it's certainly becoming an up hill battle.

I try and get everyone I know to use (and pay for) Fastmail. It has a great interface. Great calendar. Awesome spam filter. Etc... It costs $30/year to send messages around the globe. That seems like a steal to me. Ultimately, email clients are services that have maintenance and development costs - if you're not paying for it, someone is selling your information to fund the service.

$30/year isn't a big deal for people who actively use email (especially if you work in tech industry were salaries are higher), but I can tell you for a fact that non of my close relatives (and I doubt many of my friends) would be willing to spend the money for seemingly no benefit.

They mostly use email for promotion/ad emails and registering for services/games/whatever.

I've thought about switching, but last time I tried I couldn't get my own domain working on the first try, so I just gave up. I think even I would just like to have my own domain in the email and wouldn't gain any other benefits.

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

#240

Post by mixmastamyk »

sedachv wrote: post #197
ewjordan wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By making your email something custom instead of @gmail, you're spending some energy, time, and money to protect against a perceived threat. I guess my real question is, what exactly is that threat, how damaging is it, and how likely is it to occur? By my mental math, I can't really justify spending even a few bucks, or more expensively, a few hours, protecting against some consequence that I can't really quantify at…

> The biggest threat seems to be that the government will have my data and I'll be advertised at, but having my own domain doesn't help either way. Am I missing something? The biggest threat is that Google removes or locks you out of your gmail account.

Right, many people have been permanently "canceled" over unwitting mistakes they've made.
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