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Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

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Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#371

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

akoncius wrote: post #338
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The browser could throttle the cc mining based on your battery level/power state. In theory, your device could even mine while charging and then distribute the mined tokens later.

so I could not get access to content if my battery is low and I cannot mine cc ? or would I get access with "credit" so I would need to return "load" later?

I’m not sure, I’m just sketching out a solution to content monetization that might solve problems with current monetization schemes.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#372

Post by jonahx »

cjhanks wrote: post #365
jonahx wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the "it is this way; therefore people must want it this way" argument. It ignores the power of money to manipulate through advertising (or, in the general case, of power to coerce). To take the specific example of FB, most people don't want to be tracked and advertised to, they just want an easy social space to interact with their friends and family. Sure, they'd probably prefer an ad-free, non-tracking versi…

I use the "mom and dad test". My parents are completely non-tech savvy... by no means luddites... but they know very little of the details. They seem fairly aware that Facebook and Google probably knows more about them than the NSA. And they don't care - because they can easily snap chat their kids or post pictures to their friends on pinterest. What's more, they sometimes even find the sales ads helpful . Average us…

1. Your parents are outliers, ime

2. That wasn't my point. The question isn't: "Will they put up with sacrificing their privacy in exchange for the value they get?" We know the answer is "yes" to that. The question is: "Would they prefer to get the same service for the same amount of effort and not give up their privacy?" And I believe the answer to that is also "yes." And there is really no reason why that couldn't be the case. FB is not solving a technical problem that only they can solve.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#373

Post by QuadrupleA »

GuiA wrote: post #367
QuadrupleA wrote: post #359

One factor that might be at play: the user base of the web has probably dumbed down considerably over time. In 1999 you had to have some technical chops to get your modem, PPP settings, ISP phone number etc. all sorted out, and know some arcane URLs to type into the browser to get started with (back when browsers didn't auto-complete the http:// for you). So it probably attracted more intelligent people on average, w…

Honestly attitude like yours are a big part of the issue. Developers love to treat non technical people as dumbasses to ignore at best, or make fun of/exploit at worst. Maybe try to put yourself in the shoes of someone who works 3 jobs as a single parent and uses their phone to look for new housing when they get evicted or sign up for online classes, instead of claiming broadly that “they can’t bother to learn HTML”.…

I meant it a little facetiously, and not as condescending to "ordinary people" as it maybe sounded. Like you said a lot of it is just a factor of free time, not having the free time to learn PPP settings and HTML and all that (as I did when I was a teenager). I'm not suggesting that everybody should learn HTML or else they're an idiot, far from it, if someone just wants to focus on writing for a blog, etc. then there absolutely should be tools to make that simple.

One of the laments in the article is the way the web has changed from the early days of simple HTML webpages people put up themselves focused on astrophysics etc., and I think that does speak to a difference of interests and abilities in the web's community over time.

And people do have differences in intelligence, as touchy and controversial a subject as it is. I say that not to make myself feel like some shining genius, I'm not, but commercial interests tend to exploit whatever they can exploit (unfortunately) and the shifting audience of the web likely made it easier to get away with a lot of this stuff.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#374

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

_jal wrote: post #358
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mining cryptocurrencies while the current tab is in the foreground. (supposing a suitable GPU/ASIC-proof cryptocurrency is available)

It is rude to use people's property without asking[1]. I blackholed DNS for two sites who do this. [1] I'd be OK with it if they prominently indicated that, how and why they were being electricity vampires. I still wouldn't use them, but at least it wouldn't be dishonest.

Consider it from the site-owner’s perspective: if I visit someone’s site and if they are using the content on that site as a source of income, isn’t it rude for me to consume that content without paying for it? Ads and tracking have well-known trade-offs cryptocurrency mining have other tradeoffs but, in the end, might end up to be a better option.

Also, I’m conceiving of this more as a web API browsers can implement that sites can tap into than as a chunk of JavaScript that a site pushes to its users. So, arguably, you’d have consented to this scheme by installing the browser and enabling the feature.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#375

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

akoncius wrote: post #339
Zelizz wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could distribute tokens mined from a computer that's plugged in somewhere, or even purchased with normal currency. But I'm not sure I'd want to navigate a web where I'm constantly making purchase decisions with every hyperlink.

so why bother with additional steps (and cryptocurrency) instead of just pay with real money from the beginning? you are suggesting to introduce just additional unnecessary steps.

Some kind of micropayment system would be ok with me, but the nice thing about a system that doesn’t use real money is that it doesn’t factor into my budget in the same way.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#376

Post by GuiA »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #373
GuiA wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly attitude like yours are a big part of the issue. Developers love to treat non technical people as dumbasses to ignore at best, or make fun of/exploit at worst. Maybe try to put yourself in the shoes of someone who works 3 jobs as a single parent and uses their phone to look for new housing when they get evicted or sign up for online classes, instead of claiming broadly that “they can’t bother to learn HTML”.…

I meant it a little facetiously, and not as condescending to "ordinary people" as it maybe sounded. Like you said a lot of it is just a factor of free time, not having the free time to learn PPP settings and HTML and all that (as I did when I was a teenager). I'm not suggesting that everybody should learn HTML or else they're an idiot, far from it, if someone just wants to focus on writing for a blog, etc. then there…

Yes. The web didn’t get “dumbed down”; it got more diverse. This is a very good thing.

The issue is that technologists insist on making a clear distinction between the “user” and the “developer”. If you hide the number of web requests away in an obscure, borderline illegible, “developer tools” pane, is it a surprise that the average user has no idea about what is going on in their browser? No one is interested about building a browser, or even an operating system for that matter, that focuses on making things understandable, learnable. That is part of the reason why we end up in situations like the ones described in the article.

Regarding differences in intelligence, that is not a particularly relevant point here. People have differences (plural) in intelligences (plural). Even one person has diffferences in intelligences throughout their life at many different scales - I was much better at physics back in college than I am now because I practiced it more, and yet I wouldn’t say I was more intelligent 10 years ago than I am now even though I could solve physics problems faster. There are even pretty big fluctuations in my intelligence in a single day based on how tired/frustrated I am, if I have concerns at the back of my mind, etc. All of these statements aren’t really relevant here, because we have systems that deliberately obfuscate how they work, which is a much bigger problem.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#377

Post by ZenoArrow »

hehheh wrote: post #316
ZenoArrow wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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 may be hard to understand, but it is the truth!" Thank you for taking time to consider the effects of media spi…

If media spin can affect people, why couldn't a corporation or foreign government do the same? I don't understand why the facts that that a large number of people want government reform and that corporate and government forces were spending money to influence the election cannot exist side by side.

> "If media spin can affect people, why couldn't a corporation or foreign government do the same?"

They can. Media spin includes the spin driven by governments, that's why spin doctors exist:

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/spin-do...

When I say media spin, I'm referring to lies and half-truths spread through the media. I'm not suggesting it has to be the media owners that are doing the spinning.

> "I don't understand why the facts that that a large number of people want government reform and that corporate and government forces were spending money to influence the election cannot exist side by side."

They can. However, what's not commonly considered is that people may have been acting in their own self-interest.

I'm not from the US, and I would never have voted for Trump. However, I can see how the media has portrayed Trump voters, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that the media portrayal is missing the wood for the trees. The main options commonly given for why people voted for Trump is that either they were manipulated by the media or they share some of Trump's negative personality traits.

However, if you look at polls about what people care about in an election, the same thing comes out top time and time again. The economy. It seems that many people don't follow politics that closely, but what they do understand is that it has an impact on the economy, and they care about jobs.

So let's look at this from a purely economic perspective. When faced with a choice between Trump and Clinton, putting personality aside, are there any economic reasons why someone might have chosen Trump over Clinton?

The main message I hope to get across is that if the media you consume is conveniently packaging a set of memes about a subject, you can be almost certain they're missing out on details. Real life is messy and chaotic, boiling down the motives of the general population to easy to consume soundbites is unlikely to accurately capture the thoughts of hundreds of millions of people. That's why it's useful to look beyond the headlines, and look to understand those you disagree with. Partisan biases weaken the health of public discourse. Were there people who voted a certain way because they were manipulated into it? I don't doubt it. However, that's not the full picture.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#378

Post by abritinthebay »

anigbrowl wrote: post #292
abritinthebay wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I know you may think that that but that's not based on the numbers I'm afraid. It can be true for you of course. But if so you're an outlier. Long story short - we see people actively engage with video content more (ie - they share it, they comment on it, they respond to it more positively, etc etc). The numbers don't lie, and they're pretty clear. Article-based/written content isn't going anywhere, but it's not…

Are you giving people a real choice, though? And to what extent are they just hooked on your eye candy?

Yes, absolutely we are: videos don’t replace written content. We produce as much (or more) written content as before.

They’re complementary content - doing things in a different medium that wouldn’t be as effective (or possible) in written form.

That’s resulting in more positive user engagement and social activity.

More choice in fact.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#379

Post by Razengan »

anigbrowl wrote: post #305
ntoe845noe wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm really surprised that most web forum software doesn't even let you sort comments by author, date, subject (which most comments don't have), etc. There were all sorts of useful things that usenet provided. (Not the least of which is kill files for ignoring trolls.)

I think this is deliberate. Have you noticed how google makes it...very very difficult to get results of things in date order? When I've asked people who work there why (often in relation to things where the date information is well-structured, like legal opinions or scientific papers) they always respond with some vague and very obvious bullshit. Long story short, a lot of the large internet companies withhold or ob…

> We have the technology to do a lot better than we are doing, but capital prefers to manufacture scarcity in the guise of abundance.

Yes, the tight coupling of progress to profits is becoming very counter-productive. Too many good ideas and products that get killed because they can’t make enough money (and the criteria for “enough” keeps rising unnecessarily and exponentially, i.e. something has to sell in tens of millions to be considered a “success” even if half a million would be profitable.)

We will need to rethink the role of money in human civilization if we don’t want it to become a corporate hell where every action is dictated by how much money it makes.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#380

Post by weirdstuff »

tstactplsignore wrote: post #270
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! Don't we objectively know this is false? You can dispute the size of the effect, but both Russians and corporations absolutely ran large targeted misinformation and propaganda campaigns for the 2016 election, taking advantage of what you could call the user-hostile…

Let's get real. They weren't large campaigns; Russian firms/orgs (RT, really) hardly spent anything! So far the disclosed numbers are less than a 1/4 million; as opposed to the roughly $6.8 spent domestically.

Billions and billions spent by U.S. actors as opposed to less than a million spent by Russian actors! Russian efforts are immaterial and likely were intended for commercial reasons rather than political ones. (RT wants views!)

I'm getting tired of this obtuseness. Russia had negligible impact and there's nothing out there showing they did. So far what we have is speculation and finger pointing like I've never witnessed post-election.

The disastrous 2016 election is just dragginggggggg outtttt foreverrrrr.

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