The old internet died and we watched and did nothing • Hacker News Board

Re: The old internet died and we watched and did nothing

#141

Post by lubujackson » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

sneakernets wrote: post #101

shantly wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And companies started dropping that when it became very important to their business model that they maximize the amount of data they can collect about a user. 3rd party clients for my service? Unacceptable, can't spy on the user as much there, and can't advertise at them. Communicating with users on other services? Unacceptable, I need those users on my service so I can spy on them too , and besides those other servi…

Don't know why you're being downvoted when this is exactly the case in my experience. They never said "spying" outright but it's definitely why walled gardens like AOL popped up like wildfire in the 90s and why stuff like AIM was the exception and not the rule.

AOL was not about spying on you, it was about collecting that sweet monthly fee.

And anyone who lauds Apple for bringing tech to the masses should consider that AOL did the exact same thing for the Internet and really brought a glimpse of the Internet (not just the web!) to the people. Yes, real techies might want to install their IRC client of choice and fine tune settings and all that, but Grandma just wanted to click on Chat from her home screen, go to the "Recipes Room" and talk about cookies.

It was the same "less choice/more consistency" of technology that let Apple get so big, with the same huge mass appeal (but with less panache).

Re: The old internet died and we watched and did nothing

#142

Post by AndrewKemendo » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

rasengan wrote: post #4

The old internet died long before these centralized services appeared. The old internet was when we ran our own servers, built and hosted our own websites, and we were truly free in the wild wild west. Its easier than ever to run your own servers, but today few do. The old internet is dead (for now) and it looks more like the BBS era today. But we innovated past that then, and we will innovate past that now. I am gre…

The "old internet" isn't dead. It just looks dead, because the BILLIONS of people who joined the internet since 2002 simply never venture outside of the major centralized services.

There are more privately run servers, self hosted websites and bb's now than there were back then. Its cheaper, safer and easier to start and run your own network and service today than ever.

So in aggregate, there is 100x (1000x?) the niche, kooky, wierd, fun, specific internet that we had in 1997. But there is also 10^5x the giant consolidated internet that most people see.

Re: The old internet died and we watched and did nothing

#143

Post by ChristianBundy » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

api wrote: post #127

rasengan wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The protocol era was hijacked for profit. I believe that incentivized, decentralized protocols are the evolution of all of this and will bring the protocol era back AND properly incentivizes participants.

I hope so, but if you mean cryptocurrency wake me up when there is more to it than speculation and gambling. Other than the "wire transfer" classic use case for Bitcoin I see nothing new that anyone is actually using that is not one of those two things.

Protocols like Secure Scuttlebutt provide decentralization without any cryptocurrencies or global blockchains. It's a bit of a wild west, but I don't think that's a bad thing.

Re: The old internet died and we watched and did nothing

#144

Post by augusto-moura » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

There's a project focused on backuping this kind of information[1]. It's actually a distributed and communitary way of doing it, anyone can run a "warrior" instance and help the project. Modern problems require modern solutions

Edit: In the project wiki there's a lot of interesting links, like this one listing all tracked projects that are dying[2]

[1]: https://www.archiveteam.org/

[2]: https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Deathwatch

Re: The old internet died and we watched and did nothing

#145

Post by shadowgovt » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #129

na85 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are you suggesting there's no way to defeat the tech oligarchy and we should just surrender to them?

We are the ones that enable the tech oligarchy. We are, therefore, surrendering to them right now. My suggestion is to use our brains and not rely on the useless and frivolous "services" these tech oligarchy participants provide. We give them their power.

If one builds something better, people will use it.

The challenge is that it's actually quite hard to build something better. Centralization has huge advantages of common-goal, ability to curtail and exclude antagonistic actors, and decreased barriers to flow of resources.

I think the lack of alternatives to Facebook has a lot less to do with "evil" practices Facebook undertakes and a lot more to do with Facebook actually building a good tool that's easy to use for most people. Alternatives haven't hit that level of simplicity.

Re: The old internet died and we watched and did nothing

#146

Post by spaced-out » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

shantly wrote: post #126

spaced-out wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot another vector of how companies monetize user data: using it to train ML models. You don't need to keep the data long-term (though it would be more profitable if you could). You can still get a lot of value using the data to train an ML model, then use that model to build valuable decision-making systems, which few other companies could produce.

Oh, yeah, definitely that should also be illegal. If you want to train an ML model you should have to pay directly for that data, not in connection with any other service or product. The current system means every successful monopolist is also a de facto nigh-unassailable leader in ML, which clearly sucks. "Create or buy a massive spying service" shouldn't be a necessary step 1 to realistically competing in consumer-…

I disagree, many times the very reason I gave the company my data was to leverage their ML capabilities. For example, the only reason I gave LinkedIn my data was so they could find me better jobs. No one would have bothered if it were just a glossier version of Craigslist.

Plus, banks training models for fraud detection has an obvious benefit to everyone.

Re: The old internet died and we watched and did nothing

#147

Post by carapace » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #120

The saddest thing about this is how desperately people cling to records of the past, as if they matter. If you actually missed something from back then, you would remember it, and it's not really gone. If you don't remember it, it wasn't important. But here people are, trying to convince you you've lost something that you don't even know what it is. The first time you lose all your files, it feels like disaster. The…

"All things are impermanent.", eh? :-)

Re: The old internet died and we watched and did nothing

#148

Post by superkuh » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

nathias wrote: post #93

i'm still using irc

Yep. There's a million of us still active on IRC daily. Federated protocols > centralized services.

Also, the old internet where everyone hosted, or at least coded, their own website still exists. In fact almost all the old internet is still around. It's just that most people are stuck in their walled gardens and can't see it.

Re: The old internet died and we watched and did nothing

#149

Post by krapp » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 5:04 PM UTC

carapace wrote: post #111

First, it didn't die , it attenuated. It's still there. Even Gopher is still there. Second, when one says, "we did nothing", well, speak for yourself, eh? Lots of people did a lot of things and are still doing them. But the normals do not care. It's that simple: apathy and complacency (the twins demons of our New Age) and a good stiff whollop of ignorance. (Over a billion people don't know that Facebook isn't the Int…

>Over a billion people don't know that Facebook isn't the Internet! Chew on that

While that's a common axiom bandied about on HN, as is your general tone of condescension towards "the normals" (Eloi and Morlocks, seriously? You know the Eloi were the villains, right?) I'm certain that practically no one who uses Facebook is actually unaware that the rest of the web exists.

Re: The old internet died and we watched and did nothing

#150

Post by jimmaswell » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 5:04 PM UTC

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #37

ekianjo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we gotta ban collecting & monetizing user info anything that runs across a network can be monitored, and such data is valuable when you are able to merge it across several data sources. It's very unlikely tracking can even be banned or un-monitized.

This may be true but it doesn’t justify the monetization of user data. If this data is useful to cross reference, let the user opt in and use it. Give the user control and insight into the data collection. The data can be useful without tricking users and making money off their private use activities.

Monetization of data seems like a great tradeoff to me, really. The users get free content for nothing essentially. I don't see why anyone cares. It's like we've struck gold mines of new utility for society and everyone is up in arms over it.