We didn’t lose control of the Web – it was stolen • Hacker News Board

Re: We didn’t lose control of the Web – it was stolen

#121

Post by scholia » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 1:50 PM UTC

literallycancer wrote: post #105

mattmanser wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try turning off any of the incredibly invasive features in Android. If you try to turn off constant location, for example, maps starts throwing all sort of cryptic messages at you. You can't use google play without an account. They want to get you to log into Chrome so they can hook up your desktop searches to your mobile searches and profile you. If you've ever used Ok Google, every word you've ever said to it is re…

I actually like what they started doing lately, where the answer to my query is extracted from the page, and shown at the top of the results, especially when it's something simple that I just want to double check. When's sunset today?, what was the name of that movie with surgeon turned spell caster?, how long does it take to go from A to B? Another way to say XYZ? Too many sites are full of crap, so this saves me a…

When Google Gets It Wrong: Direct Answers With Debatable, Incorrect & Weird Content http://searchengineland.com/when-google-gets-it-wrong-direct...

Re: We didn’t lose control of the Web – it was stolen

#122

Post by tyingq » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 2:00 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #79

While I agree with the gist of the article, I have a problem conflating Google and Facebook in the same evil bag. Facebook is the evilest of evil, not only for the reasons stated, but also because information entered into Facebook never comes out. You have to have an account on FB to see anything on the platform. That is contrary to everything the Web ever stood for. Since I don't have a Facebook account, most of my…

I don't have a problem with conflating Google and Facebook. Facebook's encroachment on your privacy is just less subtle.

Yes, you can use Google search anonymously. But the search results you see are tweaked and tuned by the majority that don't search anonymously. Without them, your results would look more like DDG's. And "anonymous" is malleable. It still dumps cookies and fingerprints your browser, etc. Not logged in != anonymous.

Re: We didn’t lose control of the Web – it was stolen

#123

Post by NoGravitas » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 2:12 PM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #5

wyldfire wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny -- the different perspectives among the generations. I never got an account and don't feel like I'm missing much (though my wife has one). But I suppose if I'd gotten used to sharing the minutiae of my life and seeing my friends'/family's, switching to life without it might be hard.

Well, it's not that, not for me. It's that event planning and invitations now happen exclusively via FB. FB already separated the messenger from the main service. I'd love to see them spin off the event invitations into a separate service, too. That I would happily use.

Argh, this is one of our problems. Evite is a perfectly good system for invitations and event planning, in many ways better than Facebook events, but it is difficult to get all the Facebook-only people to use it. It sends invites, updates, and reminders over email, which is apparently Not Done these days.

Re: We didn’t lose control of the Web – it was stolen

#124

Post by vanderZwan » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 2:12 PM UTC

notlisted wrote: post #97

FB did steal the web and your social network. Remember how FB grew? If not, let me remind you: "See which of your friends are also on FB! Just give us your Google and Yahoo contacts". Yes, you gave FB permission to check your contacts, but FB omitted to tell us that they would be HOLDING ON to your contacts forever and ever. FB then sent those contacts, without your permission and not per your request, an email sayin…

Facebook still does not (officially) know my phone number. It keeps asking though. It also keeps telling me which of my friends have already done so, among them a number of my friends who I know for a fact have not, after asking them (because they are similarly distrustful of Facebook).

Same with a lot of other "all of your friends are doing it" UI elements: my best friends IRL (and of Facebook) have healthy levels of internet paranoia, so I know for a fact that they haven't.

Re: We didn’t lose control of the Web – it was stolen

#125

Post by NoGravitas » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 2:17 PM UTC

dorfsmay wrote: post #20

Isn't the problem that that you need money/time to make good, easy to use platforms? How many people here still use usenet vs reddit/HN ?

I would still use Usenet if my ISP hadn't shut down their NNTP server around 2005. I can't bring myself to pay extra for a third-party NNTP server, mainly because it was something I had gotten used to having as part of my internet service.

Re: We didn’t lose control of the Web – it was stolen

#126

Post by ams6110 » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 2:18 PM UTC

The original, open, non-privacy-invading web is still there. There are many sites sharing and hyperlinking academic research and relevant practitioner information that do not have advertising and do not track you.

We are the ones who voted with our clicks to use the likes of LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google.

Re: We didn’t lose control of the Web – it was stolen

#127

Post by VA3FXP » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 2:49 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #30

subjectsigma wrote: post #21

I agree with the sentiment of this article, but only to a degree. I recommend anyone interested in this to read Open Standards and the Digital Age, by Andrew Russel. The book is a partial refutation of the idea of an 'open web' using historical examples, the most shocking being the failure of open and democratic methods to build an open Internet standard versus the success of Serf and Kahn inventing TCP/IP in a close…

Never underestimate the ability of people to romanticise a past that never existed.

This quote is going to be immortalized. It is succinct, and perfectly reflects a real problem with the human condition.

Thank-you.

Re: We didn’t lose control of the Web – it was stolen

#128

Post by VA3FXP » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 2:55 PM UTC

malloryerik wrote: post #41

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never underestimate the ability of people to romanticise a past that never existed.

In agreement with your comment allow me the indulgence of posting a favorite passage from the great Don Quixote: After don Quixote had satisfied his stomach, he took some acorns in his hand, and, examining them with great care, raised his voice to speak words like these: “What a happy time and a happy age were those that the ancients called Golden! And not because gold—which in this our Age of Iron is so valued—was g…

That passage must have influenced Henry David Thoreau's - Walden.

Thank-you for sharing it.

Re: We didn’t lose control of the Web – it was stolen

#129

Post by notlisted » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 3:15 PM UTC

richardwhiuk wrote: post #114

notlisted wrote: post #97

FB did steal the web and your social network. Remember how FB grew? If not, let me remind you: "See which of your friends are also on FB! Just give us your Google and Yahoo contacts". Yes, you gave FB permission to check your contacts, but FB omitted to tell us that they would be HOLDING ON to your contacts forever and ever. FB then sent those contacts, without your permission and not per your request, an email sayin…

They asked for them, and you gave them, and annoyed all of them.

At the time it was implied they would be matched to existing members (a one-time check, as other services did). The "we're holding on to them in perpetuity" bit was definitely not clear. The spammy part happened a little later.

Relevant (2009): ("facebook sent invites to my entire contact list!") https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/gmail/SvvOuSDUF...

Re: We didn’t lose control of the Web – it was stolen

#130

Post by natoliniak » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 3:15 PM UTC

squarefoot wrote: post #118

natoliniak wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Google's removal of the discussions filter was a big blow to the openness of the web. There are some hacky solutions that emulate that feature but it is not as good. I was hoping Bing might pick up on it and introduce similar features, but it looks like their ad sponsors are just not happy with people having instant access to uncensored and unmoderated product discussions and reviews.

"Google's removal of the discussions filter was a big blow to the openness of the web" This! With that filter I could name a product and find common people talking about it, now all I find is companies selling the product. This is getting even worse when searching political topics because from mixed people discussing the topic I now find only news sites or biased sources promoting their point.

You can use the query below (or something similar) to narrow results to include keywords found in popular discussion boards (modify it to suit your needs):