Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web • Hacker News Board

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#251

Post by edgarvaldes » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 8:18 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #149

jccalhoun wrote: post #71

I use ublock origin and privacy badger not because I am worried about privacy but because the internet is basically unusable without it. Because of this, I don't see many ads. But I have been an amazon customer since 1999 (according to what they say on their website when I'm logged in.) Looking at what they recommend for me, this personalization stuff is crap. In music, Amazon recommends bands I never listen to like…

To be fair, you sound like one of the harder people to track accurately. However, I as well have been "disappointed" by the ability of websites to judge my interests. After reading about cases such as Target, who have "spooky" ability to gauge interest, I was expecting better. So I searched for a very specific motorcycle jacket with very specific features and now my page is inundated with every clothing item that has…

>To be fair, you sound like one of the harder people to track accurately.

But Amazon, in this case, doesn't need to track other surfing habits, just his purchase history. That history is not affected by privacy addons.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#252

Post by MikeGale » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 8:19 PM UTC

I share a lot of Parimal says in this piece.

Well worth a read if, you too, are finding ways to escape from and minimise the impact of this web-dystopia.

His suggestions are well worth a careful read. I suggest going further. Many of you are quite capable of making your own web based facilities, know people who you can collaborate with... In short you're in a position to actually make your own web environment. An environment that grows your own cognitive abilities, that enables you to learn well, that enables human growth instead of diminishing brain function.

It's a good idea to take control. Shape your own web, don't let it shape you.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#253

Post by jdavis703 » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 8:20 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #186

_jal wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you on this. Honestly at this point, if the information is only contained within a video, I skip it and move on[1]. (I usually leave video in the browser crippled, only turning it on when I actually want to watch something.) [1] The trend of support docs for enterprise software going video is horrible, stupid, and a negative mark when I'm evaluating products. If someone has to spend hours of eyebleed rewindi…

Same here. I simply hate sites with videos and no related text content/summary. I’ve noticed that especially news sites are increasingly employing this “feature”. I assume the main reason for this is that can force you to watch the 20-30s video ad. There is no way of avoiding it other than opening a new tab and doing something else for 30s... what a waste of life time

What would be a better solution for ensuring the video's producers continue to receive funding to make more videos?

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#254

Post by 5ilv3r » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 8:20 PM UTC

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #23

ashark wrote: post #7

The Web was doomed the moment we let Javascript initiate connections and (less significantly) modify form content.

Yes, it really has been downhill since then. I wish js apps just had their own protocol and port. js://js.server.tld could open up your js browser and you could use that when it was something you needed. Then you could just trust browsing around the normal web, knowing its just documents.

I am hoping that http2 crap protocol will attract all the ecommerce nasties and leave http as the obvious choice for static documents.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#255

Post by jwilk » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 8:22 PM UTC

draw_down wrote: post #92

I used to have a boss who lived his whole life in Russia, and then moved here after his nominal retirement. He used to say this to me, often: "That's capitalism, baby."

Here?

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#256

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 8:22 PM UTC

ataturk wrote: post #26

The part where the author tries to tie Brexit and the election of Donald Trump to the user-hostile web is bonkers. People, you have to understand this: There exists a large number of others out there who desperately want government reformed, want more localized control over their lives, and who voted accordingly. It wasn't some trick pulled on them by corporations or Russians manipulating social media. I realize that…

Jonathan Albright: "Who Hacked the Election? Ad Tech did. Through “Fake News,” Identity Resolution and Hyper-Personalization"

The data I present here suggests that before we keep pointing fingers at specific countries and tweeting about companies “hacking the election,” as well as to solve the scourge of “fake news,” it might be good to look inward. By this, I mean we should start the quest for transparency in politics with a few firms based in New York City and Silicon Valley.

https://medium.com/tow-center/who-hacked-the-election-43d401...

Albright is an ex-Googler and director of a journalism centre at Columbia University.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#257

Post by Alex3917 » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 8:23 PM UTC

1_2__4 wrote: post #231

DeusExMachina wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If video content would be so "hostile", it would have failed on its own already. People would flock to other places where they can read instead. I don't buy this idea where everything is always imposed on us by evil corporations. More and more websites using video to me seems more like a proof that people prefer videos over written content. That's why videos usually autoplay, also on YouTube and Facebook: if a person…

> If video content would be so "hostile", it would have failed on its own already. People would flock to other places where they can read instead. That is not the slightest bit true and is in fact the entire basis for the conversation we’re having.

> That is not the slightest bit true and is in fact the entire basis for the conversation we’re having.

Is it? The original article is talking about web tracking, the entire point of which is to give you more of whatever you like. Facebook just gives you more of whatever you click on, so if you're disappointed with the stuff you get on Facebook then probably you're just in denial about your own tastes or identity.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#258

Post by gknoy » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 8:24 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #218

jccalhoun wrote: post #71

I use ublock origin and privacy badger not because I am worried about privacy but because the internet is basically unusable without it. Because of this, I don't see many ads. But I have been an amazon customer since 1999 (according to what they say on their website when I'm logged in.) Looking at what they recommend for me, this personalization stuff is crap. In music, Amazon recommends bands I never listen to like…

> In books, I do like scifi but they recommend a bunch of books with spaceships shooting each other on the cover - not what I have ever been interested in. You're making a huge mistake by judging a book by its cover in this case. The copy of the Foundation series that I had as a kid was very space opera looking too, and I've seen gaudy covers on everything from Dune to Kim Stanley Robinson. For Sci fi in particular,…

I second this. Heck, the Ancillary series has paintings of spaceships as their covers, and they're some of my favorite scifi books in recent memory.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#259

Post by tomc1985 » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 8:25 PM UTC

hasenj wrote: post #188

tomc1985 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While GNU is restrictive it is an important bulwark against exactly the kind of corporate conquest that more liberal licenses have seen. Much of Amazon's unfortunate domination over cloud services couldn't exist without liberal open-source licenses...

How so? I think it's quite the opposite. The GPL allows you to run your code on a server that clients connect to without you having to give them the code to your server. This is the only way to profit off of GPL licensed libraries.

GPLv3 was supposed to patch that hole but isn't really seeing much use. With regards to hosted services, yes GPLv2 is quite liberal and prone to abuse

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#260

Post by addicted » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 8:29 PM UTC

ataturk wrote: post #26

The part where the author tries to tie Brexit and the election of Donald Trump to the user-hostile web is bonkers. People, you have to understand this: There exists a large number of others out there who desperately want government reformed, want more localized control over their lives, and who voted accordingly. It wasn't some trick pulled on them by corporations or Russians manipulating social media. I realize that…

"It wasn't some trick pulled on them by corporations or Russians manipulating social media. I realize that may be hard to understand, but it is the truth!"

You're right. That 350mn pounds/week for the NHS is right around the corner.

Brexit was nothing but a huge con.

I'll agree with you on Donald Trump. His terribleness was pretty obvious and open right from the beginning. Nothing we've seen from him wasn't evident during or before his campaign.