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Time to rebuild the web?

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Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#441

Post by mitchdoogle »

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.

I think Solid (https://solid.mit.edu/) is a tech that could change that (if only partly). Instead of the social media business holding all of your data and locking you in, you would hold your data and the social media site would serve as a platform to view that data. If you dislike what a particular company is doing, you could easily switch to someone else and not lose out on any of your social connections.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#442

Post by skummetmaelk »

martin_drapeau wrote: post #433
skummetmaelk wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just very hard to make laws against that. There are laws forbidding discrimination based on gender and race, yet we still know that this is commonplace. I personally think it is better to tackle the issue by making it harder/impossible for companies to obtain this data and allowing users to force companies to delete ANY data they have on them by request.

It is hard but needs to exist. Discrmination will always exist and its no reason to give up and not have a law. The law is important. Information should be freely available. Making it impossible to obtain would lead towards information control like China and Russia. Its the wrong approach.

> Information should be freely available. Making it impossible to obtain would lead towards information control like China and Russia.

How does giving natural persons control over who has their data lead to information control as seen in Russia and China? It's the polar opposite.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#443

Post by mcjiggerlog »

fenwick67 wrote: post #380
Hedja wrote: post #23

It feels like this is already a work in progress using Beaker Browser and Dat. - Beaker lets you browse entire websites (dat archives) and fork them. - It lets you create and serve your own sites directly from the browser and seed it from a server (like a torrent). - It lets other sites create templated sites under your name for user generated content. - Visitors by default temporarily seed your website which may red…

Beaker looks rad! Are there any DAT:// homepages or web-rings or whatever that I can start using to browse around? I have it installed but can't find any cool DAT sites to browse.

Shameless plug for my personal website: dat://tomjwatson.com

I also wrote a blog post about my experience with dat/beaker and getting my domain set up for access in beaker - dat://tomjwatson.com/blog/decentralising-the-web/

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#444

Post by jsutton »

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.

I argue that blockchain technology enables the development of such a distributed network to succeed with much better odds, as monetary value and network effects are intertwined.

Traditional software products whose success relies on network effects often require enormous sums of money to get up and running, with the promise to somehow extract profit from the users at some point in the future.

Blockchain tech allows those kinds of products to succeed without the implicit agreement that your (as a user) data will be siphoned and monetized however the company sees fit. In fact, the owners of valuable content/contributions can be rewarded fairly.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#445

Post by bjxrn »

fenwick67 wrote: post #380
Hedja wrote: post #23

It feels like this is already a work in progress using Beaker Browser and Dat. - Beaker lets you browse entire websites (dat archives) and fork them. - It lets you create and serve your own sites directly from the browser and seed it from a server (like a torrent). - It lets other sites create templated sites under your name for user generated content. - Visitors by default temporarily seed your website which may red…

Beaker looks rad! Are there any DAT:// homepages or web-rings or whatever that I can start using to browse around? I have it installed but can't find any cool DAT sites to browse.

You can find some here: https://hashbase.io/

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#446

Post by 8bitsrule »

tbv wrote: post #367
8bitsrule wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short Beaker browser review: Interesting idea and project. The browser's UI is very different... and lacks some (most) customization options... I spent a long time looking for a way to increase the font-size, for example. (Not all of us are accustomed to squinting at phones.) Preferences to set: I thought that was hiding, but it seems to be missing. Say what? After an hour toying with the interface: technically it lo…

Beaker dev here, quick question: did you try our beta release? We've done a ton of work in the past few months to make it less opaque and to freshen up our UIs. Would love to hear your thoughts on the beta if you have the time! https://github.com/beakerbrowser/beaker/releases

OK I can see the results of the work. I'll keep checking back for a font-size setting so I can see the type.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#448

Post by hueving »

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…

>disrespecting user privacy if the most popular social network were a non-profit organization?

Quite possibly. Non-profits still need to make money.

The question is what does a centrally controlled organization buy us? Why is that any kind of good compromise for users over a decentralized protocol?

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#449

Post by Daucuscarota »

erikb wrote: post #434
js8 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People want to give away responsibility. What do you mean by that? What is the point of technology, if you don't save time or effort by using it? Can you explain what should people do?

No, I will not take responsibility for your decisions from you. But thanks for the example and evidence.

Such a fallacy!
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