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Time to rebuild the web?

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Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#331

Post by opportune »

Alex3917 wrote: post #314
hueving wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it isn't the centralisation of services that are the problem. I strongly disagree. These giant monopolies on different corners of tech caused by centralization are the very reason we end up having to have these stupid discussions about how everything should work. All of this crap tied up in walled gardens means we just have to cry on the outside with #DeleteFacebook hash tags and hope stuff changes. You claim we nee…

> These giant monopolies on different corners of tech caused by centralization are the very reason we end up having to have these stupid discussions about how everything should work. NPR basically has a monopoly on public radio, and yet we don't constantly hear about all the evil stuff they're doing. Why? Because they're not being run as a loss leader to sell missiles and landmines or whatever. Centralization isn't b…

"monopoly on public radio"

If you think about that phrase for a second you'll realize how ridiculous it sounds.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#332

Post by talmand »

snug wrote: post #279
TeMPOraL wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just social media, and it's not just ads, about which other people responded to you. The root of the problem - or at least the trunk very close to the root - is Software as a Service. It's the trend of turning software into services. Sure, it's nice for the vendors, and it's nice for corporate clients who can write off responsibility to a third party. But it also makes you no longer in control of your data,…

> If technology is meant to be - or at least is capable of being - empowering to individuals, then turning everything into a service is an exact opposite of that. What? No. Plenty of new companies are being built off these SaaS providers. Why should a company just starting out build their own infrastructure, host their own CRM, build their own AI models. Companies would move much more slowely if they couldn't rely on…

I imagine the point being made might be more along the lines of owning software versus renting it.

If you purchase software that your company relies on, it belongs to you. Regardless if that third-party disappears. You still have use of the software until you can determine if you need to replace it or if it'll still work out for your needs.

Now renting the software as a service is a different matter. If the third-party goes under, well then you have problems. Problems you may have to solve immediately.

As an individual who is trying to build something, a disappearing third-party may not be detrimental if you still have the software at hand. You would not be locked down by that third-party's SaaS.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#333

Post by always_good »

pvg wrote: post #280
always_good wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? You could access arbitrary websites from AOL. How is that not part of the internet?

What if I told you that when AOL started, you could not access arbitrary web sites from it because there weren't any.

I'd say that your core distinction then is nonsensical and I'd wonder what it contributed.

What if I said that? Is this hypothetical tense helping the conversation?

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#334

Post by matchagaucho »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #249
randomsearch wrote: post #105

I don't believe the problem lies in any technology. We don't need blockchain, it's not JavaScript minification, it isn't the centralisation of services that are the problem. It's the business model. No amount of tech is going to change that. If you want to change the situation, start social media businesses with a different business model.

It's not just social media, and it's not just ads, about which other people responded to you. The root of the problem - or at least the trunk very close to the root - is Software as a Service. It's the trend of turning software into services. Sure, it's nice for the vendors, and it's nice for corporate clients who can write off responsibility to a third party. But it also makes you no longer in control of your data,…

The root of the problem is that the Internet does not intrinsically have a concept of genuine identity.

Yes, first amendment rights are preserved in the "real" Internet through anonymous posting. And information gets shared that otherwise would not if identity were revealed.

But that begets spam, fishing, scams, and a number of bad actors that drive people towards walled gardens for communications.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#335

Post by lxe »

So the technologies such as blockchain are too complicated and require significant UX work, yet “view source“ and copying and pasting HTML code is somehow a better user experience?

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#336

Post by jasode »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #249
randomsearch wrote: post #105

I don't believe the problem lies in any technology. We don't need blockchain, it's not JavaScript minification, it isn't the centralisation of services that are the problem. It's the business model. No amount of tech is going to change that. If you want to change the situation, start social media businesses with a different business model.

It's not just social media, and it's not just ads, about which other people responded to you. The root of the problem - or at least the trunk very close to the root - is Software as a Service. It's the trend of turning software into services. Sure, it's nice for the vendors, and it's nice for corporate clients who can write off responsibility to a third party. But it also makes you no longer in control of your data,…

>It's the trend of turning software into services. [...] But it also makes you no longer in control of your data, and the code that runs on it. The availability of your work becomes completely dependent on business decisions of third parties, which can - and frequently do - disappear suddenly.

Here's a thought experiment I'd like people to ponder: Suppose we had this decentralized hardware utopia where every homeowner had his own web server node ... such as a "FreedomBox"[1][2] or a hypothetical ISP smart router with builtin 16GB RAM and 10 terabytes of disk to hold Sandstorm[3] or whatever self-hosting app stack you can think of.

Even with those favorable conditions, I'd argue we'd still evolve towards Youtube centralization. I'd encourage people to think about why that counterintuitive result eventually happens. (As a hint, Youtube does things that localized technology installed in the home doesn't solve and can't solve.)

>If technology is meant to be [...] empowering to individuals, then turning everything into a service is an exact opposite of that.

To further explore if eventual mass migration from home self-hosted videos to centralized Youtube is inevitable, we have to be open-minded to the idea that thousands of people will conclude that "putting my video on Youtube instead of hosting it on my own server is what empowers me." Why would people think that opposite thought?

[1] https://freedombox.org/ [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/nyregion/16about.html

[3] https://sandstorm.io

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#337

Post by _pmf_ »

AlexB138 wrote: post #169
_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?

Those are two separate things. OP is talking about the pipe being monetized. That is an extra charge we will pay just to get to the sites that then monetize via ads or gathering our data.

My point is that there might be kickbacks from pipe operator to content mill.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#338

Post by swlkr »

brandon272 wrote: post #312
hueving wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it isn't the centralisation of services that are the problem. I strongly disagree. These giant monopolies on different corners of tech caused by centralization are the very reason we end up having to have these stupid discussions about how everything should work. All of this crap tied up in walled gardens means we just have to cry on the outside with #DeleteFacebook hash tags and hope stuff changes. You claim we nee…

> You claim we need to change the business model. I claim the business model is irrelevant if we instead focus on open source and distributed platforms. I think the organizational model is relevant. Would we be having the discussions around the most popular social network selling our data and completely disrespecting user privacy if the most popular social network were a non-profit organization? I have to think there…

I agree with this. Everyone using the internet today can learn SQL and store all of their personal data in their own SQLite database, with blobs pointing to folders in their hard drives. Which sounds impossible, because it is.

The middle ground is instead of a few major players in a given market, we have thousands of players in a market that people can move between easily. Kind of like mastodon, but every node is a different community with different interests. It would be like if we “upgraded” all of the existing forums on the internet today.

So instead of Facebook, we should have 10,000 smaller “social networks” all competing. This sounds like a much better outcome than never trying to compete with Facebook or twitter or google.

How can these large tech companies today serve the interest of every “user”? They can’t.

Decentralization is nice, but you don’t even need it to solve this problem.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#339

Post by mac01021 »

jasode wrote: post #336
TeMPOraL wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just social media, and it's not just ads, about which other people responded to you. The root of the problem - or at least the trunk very close to the root - is Software as a Service. It's the trend of turning software into services. Sure, it's nice for the vendors, and it's nice for corporate clients who can write off responsibility to a third party. But it also makes you no longer in control of your data,…

>It's the trend of turning software into services. [...] But it also makes you no longer in control of your data, and the code that runs on it. The availability of your work becomes completely dependent on business decisions of third parties, which can - and frequently do - disappear suddenly. Here's a thought experiment I'd like people to ponder: Suppose we had this decentralized hardware utopia where every homeowne…

> Youtube does things that localized technology installed in the home doesn't solve and can't solve.

Are you talking about search and content discovery? Are you talking about replicating the most popular videos over many servers so that the system can efficiently serve all the demand to watch those videos?

Maybe existing, fully-distributed products don't solve these problems. But it isn't obvious to me that they can't.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#340

Post by majormajor »

hueving wrote: post #302
randomsearch wrote: post #105

I don't believe the problem lies in any technology. We don't need blockchain, it's not JavaScript minification, it isn't the centralisation of services that are the problem. It's the business model. No amount of tech is going to change that. If you want to change the situation, start social media businesses with a different business model.

>it isn't the centralisation of services that are the problem. I strongly disagree. These giant monopolies on different corners of tech caused by centralization are the very reason we end up having to have these stupid discussions about how everything should work. All of this crap tied up in walled gardens means we just have to cry on the outside with #DeleteFacebook hash tags and hope stuff changes. You claim we nee…

How do you focus on open source and distributed platform when all the money - both investment, and revenue - is in centralized proprietary ones.

Money is focus.

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