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Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

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Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#411

Post by zdkl »

chii wrote: post #383
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s ok because I think it’s unreasonable to expect site owners to provide content free of charge: people hate paywalls and ads/tracking because they prevent access to content, add unwanted content and/or infringe on the user’s privacy. An automatic cryptocurrency micropayment system (like the Brave browser’s BAT system, if I understand correctly) could be designed to address some or all of these problems wit…

> people hate paywalls .... An automatic cryptocurrency micropayment system and yet they are willing to expend more electricity, at a huge inefficiency, to produce vastly less monetary value to the site. I would rather just pay the 1cent.

Yes the inefficiency in mining coins and the hefty fees impact the game theoretic value of this method but it doesn't mean there is no value in that form of compensation.

If the choice is between a barren wasteland of providers removing useful content from open access or waiting on 1% of users to subsidise the rest or giving the option to users to pay while they're accessing content, I'll take some form of choice to put my hardware to use for a while if thay eventually pays for hosting and a couple meals to the admin.

I think we agree that this does not work at scale but for small operators and some niches, I'm convinced this is a safe option for the siteowner not to have to mess with a payment processor and personnaly identifiable information.

This last point especially might become more important with the EU regulations on the horizon.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#412

Post by rayalez »

blunte wrote: post #8

This is a good an informative essay. However, there's another element of "user-hostile" that I didn't see addressed (maybe I missed it in my haste?) -- that is the websites trying to control exactly how the content is consumed by the user. It seems increasingly that web content is being delivered in video form. That itself is hostile to some people. Some of us want the freedom to read (or scan quickly). But many of t…

Wow, I'm very surprised by the amount of people here who dislike videos. I absolutely love video courses, and I have learned 60-80% of everything I know about programming through them.

As a specific example, Stephen Grider's udemy courses took me through the process of learning full stack Node/React app development, and it was awesome.

I find it much harder to focus and be productive while reading books, videos (especially with good slides and diagrams) feel way more natural.

I wonder what percentage of people prefer learning from books to learning from (good) video courses. Is this HN being contrarian, or does the majority really prefer text?

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#413

Post by zdkl »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #382
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not if you do the equivalent of hanging a sign on the front door saying "please come in". Which I would argue is the equivalent of what you are doing by putting your content on a communication protocol designed to make it freely available. Indeed, such behavior is reminiscent of one of the oldest tourist scams in the book, no doubt experienced by anyone who has traveled the world in any amount. That is to say, the ma…

I believe the general thought here is more to have the mining (and content) behind a good old paywall, featuring prominently your different options, with "mine for access" just one of the available options.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#414

Post by jhpankow »

wrycoder wrote: post #399
vvanders wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes, I hate the implementation(love the tech) behind PACTOR. Of course there's also the really annoying symbol rate limit regulations as well. Thankfully K1JT via WSJT has been doing some awesome open source weak signal work. FT8 is pretty sweet and really exploded recently.

FT8 is remarkable tech, but it’s essentially computers talking to each other. Not the same as person to person through the static noises, which is the old ham way. Refer to the recent discussion/dismay on the Topband (i.e. 160 meters) mail list.

I think FT8 is a necessary evil at this point. It's good to see problems with a mode basically getting too popular rather than the bands being dead. Some of those users will move to explore new digital modes as they evolve. The future is bright for ham radio.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#415

Post by zdkl »

s73ver_ wrote: post #318
vog wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the neither the presence of the ads themselves nor my decision to skip them degrades the experience of listening to the podcast I beg to differ. I see the ability to skip ads immediately, at any time, as a fundamental user right (and websites that try to deny this right should be prosecute by consumer protection). In other words, this is not the distinction between good versus bad quality. It is the distinction…

I cannot agree with this sentiment. You're basically demanding that these creators work for you, for free. If you choose to skip the ads, then how should the creators be compensated for the content that you consumed? "With regard to quality, it is a huge jump upwards if a podcast has no ads at all, nowhere, not even hidden or implicit. It is a really noticeable difference if the whole audio simply doesn't care about…

Either talk about something you care about a lot and do it for the love, or remember you're competing against students doing this for the fun or as an exercise.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#416

Post by flukus »

Spivak wrote: post #410
lern_too_spel wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, FastMail isn't any better for privacy, and you have to pay for it to boot. The article was more or less reasonable until the nonsensical recommendations at the end.

No email solution will be better for privacy outside of hosting it yourself. I have it set up for my personal email because I thought it was a fun project, but there's no point in pretending that it's realistic for casual email users. Email without outside encryption like PGP is fundamentally privacy by policy which lives and dies by the reputation and policy of the provider: it seems like Fastmail's is pretty good.

> but there's no point in pretending that it's realistic for casual email users.

Are there any technical reasons why we couldn't have an "email in a box" type setup with an easy gui configuration? I've though of setting up a personal email/dropbox/IM/youtube box and the biggest hurdles I could think of were domain registration, bandwidth (for the youtube clone) and firewall rules. Lack of static IP's is also an issue but that seems solvable.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#417

Post by megaman22 »

rayalez wrote: post #412
blunte wrote: post #8

This is a good an informative essay. However, there's another element of "user-hostile" that I didn't see addressed (maybe I missed it in my haste?) -- that is the websites trying to control exactly how the content is consumed by the user. It seems increasingly that web content is being delivered in video form. That itself is hostile to some people. Some of us want the freedom to read (or scan quickly). But many of t…

Wow, I'm very surprised by the amount of people here who dislike videos. I absolutely love video courses, and I have learned 60-80% of everything I know about programming through them. As a specific example, Stephen Grider's udemy courses took me through the process of learning full stack Node/React app development, and it was awesome. I find it much harder to focus and be productive while reading books, videos (espe…

I've got to be able to go through it at my own pace, rather than the pace dictated by the video/podcast.

The worst is anything that has terminal commands or code displayed in a video. Screenshots aren't much better, although at least they stay put without having to futz with the pause controls. Text - that is searchable and copy/pasteable - is king [1].

I can do podcasts and videos for other subjects; I've been loving Dan Carlin and the Great War youtube series. But technical stuff is too hard.

[1] Nothing boils my blood like a bug report with a screenshot of a logfile open in notepad, or a very low resolution, downsampled jpeg of the browser JS console... It means you worked harder to give me less useful information

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#418

Post by the_jeremy »

rayalez wrote: post #412
blunte wrote: post #8

This is a good an informative essay. However, there's another element of "user-hostile" that I didn't see addressed (maybe I missed it in my haste?) -- that is the websites trying to control exactly how the content is consumed by the user. It seems increasingly that web content is being delivered in video form. That itself is hostile to some people. Some of us want the freedom to read (or scan quickly). But many of t…

Wow, I'm very surprised by the amount of people here who dislike videos. I absolutely love video courses, and I have learned 60-80% of everything I know about programming through them. As a specific example, Stephen Grider's udemy courses took me through the process of learning full stack Node/React app development, and it was awesome. I find it much harder to focus and be productive while reading books, videos (espe…

I think there is a large difference between searching for key info you need and trying to learn a bunch of information through a course.

If I want quick information on how to install or troubleshoot something that realistically should only be one or two lines of code, watching someone's youtube video is a very inefficient way to provide that content.

Re: Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web

#420

Post by tarp »

duxup wrote: post #109
cobbzilla wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Firefox, in `about:config` you can set `media.autoplay.enabled` to false to permanently disable auto-play video everywhere. I love it. Now videos only play when I press play. A slight annoyance when watching netflix/etc, but well worth the price everywhere else. If I could whitelist a set of domains to allow autoplay it would be perfect.

Thank you. I hear chrome is going to or maybe has and is going to make a similar option more visible. I agree, having to hit play is a small price to pay.

chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy
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