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Time to rebuild the web?

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Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#391

Post by Dibbles »

brandon272 wrote: post #382
Dibbles wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why we need a social media protocol more than just a new platform.

I don't really understand what the term "protocol" means in this context or how a protocol can provide the foundations of a social network. Can you elaborate?

Sure, it means that there would be a set of rules for social platforms to connect with each other, or people to connect to each other. The implementation is open for debate, but the general gist of it is to allow competition by not excluding users that are on different platforms. Blockchain technology for example, is protocol heavy, and different software (wallets etc.) can be created for it without excluding users.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#392

Post by wernercd »

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…

One thing I've heard harped on recently is how common the Pareto type distributions are.

"80% of the work is done by 20% of the workers".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

Where this comes into play with regards to your thought experiment... is how the larger the playing field, the fewer the large players are - they tend to get "concentrated".

Plenty of Facebook alternatives exist... but why go to them? No one uses them. Large chunks of friends/family/acquaintances aren't "there" - they are on Facebook.

Plenty of authors other than Steven King exist... but given a few spaces on shelves at kiosks, who's going to get those spots? You can guarantee King will get one of those few spots...

The majority of activity is going to condense down until a few spots. Why? Because that is where everyone else is. That's where the skilled "creators" are.

The question becomes... how do you make sure those spots are fair, open, balanced, secure, etc.

Data in the hands of a few companies? What happens when they all lean left - politically? What happens when one of them gets hacked? When a "foreign actor" learns how to game that system?

I've thought for the last decade that things will continue to get "worse" before they get "better". How much worse? How can we make it better?

Million dollar questions.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#393

Post by kayali »

reaperducer wrote: post #293
WhiteNoiz3 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always felt that we need some kind of ubiquitous and low friction micro transactions for small time websites to succeed and to move away from the ad driven model. A niche blog could be successful with a small audience if each of them donates a penny or two to read new stories. That way people are directly supporting content that they find useful, rather than having to create controversy to drive ads and clicks.

There is (was?) a service that did this. I had it on one of my blogs a few years ago. People could use it to donate as little as a penny, and the donate button appeared on each article. I was very surprised how generous some people were. 10¢, 20¢, or more. But in the end, even with tens or hundreds of thousands of views, the article that got the most donations still only racked up about eight bucks.

Flattr is the name, I think.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#394

Post by [deleted] »

mozumder wrote: post #272
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.

Disagree completely. The business model doesn't need to be profitable. Almost every website is unprofitable in itself, and only exist to serve as a person's or company's marketing interface. Websites ARE the ads, because that's their point. The web is a giant marketing device to sell stuff, like your resume or your local plumber or your open-source software project. The problem is the tech, and in particular, how a p…

[deleted]

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#395

Post by reitanqild »

brandon272 wrote: post #382
Dibbles wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why we need a social media protocol more than just a new platform.

I don't really understand what the term "protocol" means in this context or how a protocol can provide the foundations of a social network. Can you elaborate?

Protocol is the thing that makes sure you can get email from anyone, independent of what client they used to send it and what client you used to receive it.

There's technically nothing to prevent sending messages from facebook to twitter etc, those companies just didn't want it to happen so they didn't agree on a way to do it, that is a protocol.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#396

Post by gkya »

reaperducer wrote: post #385
gkya wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen one of them advertise online. Online adverts are way different than TV adverts. For one the latter costs way more, if I'm not mistaken. And even if that's not the case, still, those companies have so much money that running ads is like a hobby for them. So I'd rather not follow them. Just like Google can get away with killing Reader, they can get away with many things which if a smaller company did wou…

Remember that if you're not in an advertiser's target demographic online, you won't see their ads. I've seen plenty of McDonald's ads online. Coca-Cola, usually around Christmas and the Super Bowl. P&G? Occasionally, but probably more often than I realize because it has so many brands.

> Remember that if you're not in an advertiser's target demographic online, you won't see their ads.

That's one statement I can not believe. But it might be the case that I have not indeed seen the ads from those companies, maybe because of where I am.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#397

Post by brandon272 »

reitanqild wrote: post #395
brandon272 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand what the term "protocol" means in this context or how a protocol can provide the foundations of a social network. Can you elaborate?

Protocol is the thing that makes sure you can get email from anyone, independent of what client they used to send it and what client you used to receive it. There's technically nothing to prevent sending messages from facebook to twitter etc, those companies just didn't want it to happen so they didn't agree on a way to do it, that is a protocol.

The problem is that it assumes that people in general understand and want to use protocol based services because they are protocol based services. Look at instant messaging as an example of where consumers/users vote routinely to choose features over the foundation of the service. I would love to chat with people on XMPP but I don't know anyone who uses it.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#399

Post by kristianc »

TACIXAT wrote: post #377
matte_black wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is talking about monetization. It’s not even that counterintuitive with some capitalist forethought.

Monetization is easily possible, we just need a reliable way to transfer small amounts of money electronically at a low fee. Right now the large credit card players have a stranglehold on digital transactions, we just need something new that makes it not awful to pay someone a few cents online.

Consider that the people watching the videos have repeatedly shown in no uncertain terms (even when given the option and it is made really really easy for them), that they don't want to pay.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#400

Post by FridgeSeal »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #362
Just_Smith wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't used an ad blockers for Spotify in a long time (because I'm a premium user when I can afford it), but when I was using one, all it did was mute the ads when they came on. Not perfect, but it certainly didn't break the mood as much as a randomly placed ad.

I use Spotify web with uBlock. It doesn't mute audio ads, they just aren't there. Not sure how it works. As a side note, the web app is hidden -- they want you to download the desktop app, from which you can't block ads. The thing is, the desktop app performs even worse than the web app

You can definitely block ads on desktop Spotify: I did it by modifying my hosts file.

As for your first question, I think when it encounters what should be an audio ad in the queue, it attempts to play it, due to the host file, the ad request gets blocked/sent to a black hole and nothing is returned, so the application presumably assumes that everything was fine and continues on.

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