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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?

#281

Post by delegate »

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.

I tried not to make value judgement in my comment, because, well, I don't really know wether this whole thing is good or bad. I'm just observing the phenomena - seems like confluence of power is unavoidable, a law of nature if you will, so it would have gotten to this regardless.

The fact that billions of people can do something they couldn't do before is commendable, but it also raises the bar for everyone - just like reading and spelling did 100 years ago and now it becomes obligatory for everyone to learn and communicate or be left behind.

In other words, we have super powers compared to past generations, but it doesn't matter because everyone has them now.

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

#282

Post by marksomnian »

hibikir wrote: post #190
ptr_void wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

Every few days we have an article here in HN about a relatively big company, and people throw the classic comment that they don't understand how they need hundreds/thousands of programmers to do what they do, when the prototype of their website can be done by 2 people over a weekend. What you are doing is just a slightly more complex version of this, but the answer is still the same, scale. Software is easier to copy…

Exactly. You don't need all those people to make Twitter. You need all those people to make Twitter work at scale. Yes, technology does move easily, however if there's man-years of labour invested in making it work well at scale, it's suddenly a lot less movable.

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

#283

Post by dualogy »

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…

The above example might as well serve to reassure you that dystopia is a long ways off. Because whoever saw the first "tractors" and had such worries, died long before the first hints of "tube food" appeared --- or certainly before such became daily standard fare for the majority, rather than the odd diversionary rare "treat" / entertainment for an urban minority..

Agricultural examples are also tricky analogies here. Replacing beasts of burden with fossil fuels for one always carried the siren song of "we can feed more people for lowered costs --- think of the many hungry ones" (of course reproduction rates always outran such promises then til now) and certainly none of these inventions had the potential to so profoundly rewire brains and actual human consciousness as the always-on, easy-to-use, always-connected, full-mobility "smart" screens that spreaded slowly less than a decade ago.

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

#284

Post by blablabla123 »

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…

When there was Windows 98 and ME 'we' thought the Microsoft's proprietary systems are the dominant platform. Maayybe Linux would win but being so difficult to even install, little chance someone outside of the IT world could productively use it, like install an Application, print something.

Fast forward 15 years: many surprises happened, non-IT people don't even think of buying desktop computers. Laptops are borderline geek-devices, most of the stuff is going on cell-phones of which most are Linux-powered.

Windows as a growing platform is more or less dead. (There are serious efforts to reanimate it, but who knows...)

Maybe the example is too geeky, and one may argue that Windows didn't have so many users as Facebook and Google now. Instead think of Televisions, at least in Germany they are dead. Most of my friends don't have a TV and even among those people who have one, many argue that it's bad for you.

So yeah, think positive. ;)

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

#285

Post by cuonic »

wishinghand wrote: post #263
Pxtl wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I only know two passwords: one for my password manager and one to unlock my computer.

But you're still "managing umpteen million passwords", hence the name password manager.

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

#287

Post by amelius »

I think the developer community should distance itself more from big companies that act badly.

One way to do this could be for open source authors to introduce a section in the README file expressing the wish that the software will not be used in ways the user is not aware of, such as user-tracking.

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

#288

Post by TulliusCicero »

lifeformed wrote: post #34
TulliusCicero wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're kidding yourself if you think people actually want to run their own server for the purposes of social networking.

It could be pre-made and run on AWS automatically be default. More advanced users could tinker with it if they want. You would pay money for the costs of running it, plus an extra something.

> You would pay money for the costs of running it

Nobody except hardcore tech nerds would want to do this.

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

#289

Post by C4stor »

dajt wrote: post #266
interfixus wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck posting some controversial point of view on Facebook or similar platforms. They'll axe you in the blink of an eye. It's real. It happens all the time. I have seen it again and again.

I may have a business one day that sells bits for model steam locos. Many people who are likely to be my customers belong to a facebook group, and probably don't use their PCs much except for facebook and e-mail. And if I needed to post a controversial point of view on my model steam loco business page, I've got bigger problems than facebook. I can't stand facebook, but for my purposes it is probably the cheapest, mo…

I think that your point of view is both : - totally acceptable :-) - not really answering the OP question !

The way I understand it, the question could be phrased : "What costs are we willing to pay to reduce the collective social costs of ultradependence on private companies". You clearly states what are the costs you're not willing to pay, but don't really answer the question which is : what costs would you actually be ready to pay ? (Maybe the answer is none, but I don't feel like you actually state that ?)

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

#290

Post by realcr »

I'm working on freedomlayer.org. It is a research project for finding out solutions to various questions:

- Distributed and secure routing, specifically in mesh networks.

- Creation of scalable economy of digital goods (Storage, computation power and networking) between computers.

I believe that these will provide a foundation to build things like distributed email.

Currently freedomlayer contains mostly research documents, though I plan to implement some of it in the near future.

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