Time to rebuild the web? • Hacker News Board

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#191

Post by spiralpolitik » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 1:57 PM UTC

wsy wrote: post #159

It is somewhat ironic to see such an article coming from the VP of a large publisher. How can he seriously suggest to use Feedly as tool for finding relevant and high-quality content? Where one of a publisher's main services is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to guide the reader to content useful for them. The whole issue I see with these articles is that they view the Web mainly from the content producer s…

It's doubly ironic to see such an article from a VP of a large publisher that recently shuttered its own digital bookstore that sold unencumbered PDF copies and moved it's own content into walled gardens of concentrated content.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#192

Post by creatonez » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

d--b wrote: post #106

These articles are annoying. They completely miss the point. The web as it was in the early 90s was an alternative to major content delivery platforms (TV, press, mostly). So there was these massive systems that were the press and the TV who would own most of our attention span. And then there was this cute alternative technology with a great community that was yet unpolluted by the big guys. Today, the big content g…

> I would probably never have read this article if it had been published in the 90s. Since it's #1 on HN, perhaps 50k people have read it today! The way I use the web feels very much like the 90s: a few aggregation sites, a lot of excellent content written by independent guys, links between them...

Don't forget that you're on Hacker News, a relatively small site with a very aggressive name for "normies" :)

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#193

Post by realpeopleio » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

john_minsk wrote: post #186

vbezhenar wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the only reliable way to verify that a user is a real person would be to coordinate this work with government. Kazakhstan allows for each citizen to get a signed digital certificate to use it for government websites, but it's possible to use it everywhere, it's a plain X.509 RSA certificate signed by a special certificate authority. I'm aware that there are many countries doing exactly the same thing. So…

And let government track your each step... I trust google more

This was a motivating factor for us. If a market solution doesn't appear and remedy the problem, then we'll get government regulation.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#194

Post by JackFr » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

throw2016 wrote: post #180

JackFr wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We just need to tweak the advertising model to disable their entire business model . FTFY

Nope. That's a false argument. Advertising does not in any way depend on micro targeting. People stalk others because they want to, because there are no rules against it yet, because they are greedy and don't care about externalities, because they are happy to profess and expect ethical behavior from others in society when they can't demonstrate it themselves. Advertising existed and thrived long before the existence…

> Advertising does not in any fundamental way depend on micro targeting. Advertising existed and thrived long before the existence of the internet.

I get that.

The comparative advantage of Google and Facebook was that they could provide a demographic with greater specificity than anyone before, by a lot. There is an old saying, "I know half my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which half." Google and FB were going to end that.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#195

Post by isostatic » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

kristianc wrote: post #171

_pmf_ wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> until ISPs start offering subsidized plans for Facebook, Gmail, Spotify, Twitter, and expensive plans for everything else. Is priced content worse than the current situation, where services are monetized exclusively by essentially running malware on the user's machine?

> Is priced content worse than the current situation, where services are monetized exclusively by essentially running malware on the user's machine? You're conflating two things: the revenue model for publishers and ISPs cutting off access to services which do not sign an agreement with them. The fee ISPs charge, you can take as read would not go towards subsidizing independent content.

But then you just choose an ISP that doesn't do such dastardly deals. It might cost more, but that's your choice.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#196

Post by always_good » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 2:07 PM UTC

mynewtb wrote: post #129

klokoman wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there aren't avatars and signatures. Those are essential to recognize users and also find out what they're about (signatures with links to other sites helped everyone). Also even a little personalization will be an incentive to invest a little more time in the community.

Also the concept of voting and strictly time-based decaying.

Yeah, without bumping threads on new posts, there's almost no reason to even comment on older topics on HN/Reddit. If it's not on the first two pages, nobody is going to see it.

Even worse, the only person who might see it is the one person you responded to since it's in the profile comment feed, and a back-and-forth isn't very interesting.

This makes forums much different where each new reply bumps the topic into the eyes of any number of people who are online.

The upstream is wrong. Avatars and (ugh) signatures don't make a forum. Being able to converse over time is what does it. That's how you get to know regulars beyond spotting their one-off posts per submission.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#197

Post by arippberger » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 2:07 PM UTC

PiperNet

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#198

Post by isostatic » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 2:09 PM UTC

pferde wrote: post #174

skummetmaelk wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US there has been a steady decline: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/ci... Almost three quarters of all smokers in the US want to quit: http://news.gallup.com/poll/163763/smokers-quit-tried-multip... I think it is pretty clear that the information and social stigma campaigns run by people who care about the health of their fellow citizens have been effective.

That doesn't mean much. I know several people who have wanted to quit smoking for 20+ years now.

Quitting smoking is easy, I've done it 5 times!

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#199

Post by _emacsomancer_ » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 2:11 PM UTC

isostatic wrote: post #195

kristianc wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is priced content worse than the current situation, where services are monetized exclusively by essentially running malware on the user's machine? You're conflating two things: the revenue model for publishers and ISPs cutting off access to services which do not sign an agreement with them. The fee ISPs charge, you can take as read would not go towards subsidizing independent content.

But then you just choose an ISP that doesn't do such dastardly deals. It might cost more, but that's your choice.

In the US, one's choices are often (1) ISP A, (2) no internet.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#200

Post by Mononokay » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

vlehto wrote: post #166

kristianc wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which works great, until ISPs start offering subsidized plans for Facebook, Gmail, Spotify, Twitter, and expensive plans for everything else. When that happens, there is very little economic incentive to have smaller websites, smaller e-commerce websites end up being part of Amazon, and Google starts providing more and more of its own content.

EU is about to enforce GDPR. Net neutrality seems to be American problem, while rest of the world is moving to the opposite direction. Which economy has better prospects in the long run? Currently internet is very U.S. centric because most of the big players are located there. That could change if European legislation is more supportive for small agile companies to evolve.

GDPR is a bit heavy handed where it counts, and generally ends up as a net-loss.

The US definitely has its problems, but as long as there's still an ISP in the Valley who upholds Net Neutrality, development is still probably going to happen there.

Asia will replace it, if anything.