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The old internet died and we watched and did nothing

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

#231

Post by iso1210 »

ekianjo wrote: post #40
AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> This may be true but it doesn’t justify the monetization of user data. I don't understand your point. If it can technically be done and it is valuable in any way, it WILL be done. No matter the justification.

> If it can technically be done and it is valuable in any way

Insider trading is illegal

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

#232

Post by TulliusCicero »

keiferski wrote: post #199
TulliusCicero wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advantage of the big centralized services is that they're more accessible. They're generally very easy to use, it's harder to fuck things up there. A lot of the kind of nerds that post on hacker news, myself included, frequently discount how much of a barrier technical difficulty is. For us, setting up an IRC client, or even a server, is hardly a big deal at all. But for the average person, they either can't or w…

I don't necessarily agree that accessibility is a universal good thing, at least when it comes to building a community. Reddit is a good example - there is basically zero effort required to join and post. There is also very little incentive to remain active and post good content (karma is more or less irrelevant compared to incentives in forum sites of the past.) As a result, you get fairly low-quality discussion con…

Well, it's a good thing if you want a service to be more popular, which is what people here are complaining about: that the centralized services beat the decentralized ones.

It's not like IRC went away, lots of people still use it. It was just massively eclipsed by more accessible alternatives.

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

#233

Post by decasteve »

mumblemumble wrote: post #194
decasteve wrote: post #35

More than a dozen comments on this article and none reference the actual content of the article and miss the point of the article entirely. It's a headline the evokes different ideas but it has nothing to do with the Internet not being what it used to be. The sorry state of platforms is an issue, for sure, but it's not what this article is about. Commenting on headlines is another sorry state of Internet discussion.…

I'm actually OK with that. Mass preservation of literally everything isn't custodianship, it's viparinama-dukkha. It's coming from the same place that resulted in my great-grandmother's house being fit for an episode of Hoarders . She thought that each of those items might be useful to someone some day, but actually it just created that much bigger and nastier a haystack to sift through when the time came to try and…

Yours is the sort of comment I’d hope for. It’s an excellent point of discussion.

I tend to agree with your perspective myself. But at the same time, much of what we discovered about ancient civilization literally came from trash heaps. Future generations after we’re gone might enjoy frippling through what we took for granted.

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

#234

Post by grogenaut »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #219
StevePerkins wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started college, and discovered the Internet, in fall of 1993. An epoch infamously known as "Eternal September" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September ). The old-timers on Usenet and IRC at the time thought that me and my classmates were idiots. That we killed the "old Internet". From my perspective though, the "old Internet" died when Deja News sold out to Google. When phpBB forums started replacing Use…

The internet is dead. Long live the internet. I don't know if I agree with your unstated premise that none of these iterations are inherently better or worse than what came before or what will come after. I think there has been a phase change from participation to consumption. The internet has become TV for most users. Not just in the sense of the viewer passively watching, but in the sense of the content itself bein…

99% of what I watch on YouTube is how to videos by people with about 20 total videos. The biggest one I watch is Colin furze and that's about 3x a year when it shows up here. He's like 2000x the size of my next watch.

I will say a lot of stuff is much better produced these days. Proliferation of good cameras and editing software and even the big producers using smash cuts makes that so.

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

#235

Post by JohnFen »

throwaway17_17 wrote: post #227
JohnFen wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Monetization of data seems like a great tradeoff to me, really. That's a fair opinion. But why should those of us who do not share that opinion be forced to be subjected to spying?

I am not trying to be antagonistic, but how is anyone (particularly the assumed tech-savvy users of HN) forced into the ‘spying.’ When you use these services the cost is the monetization of your data. FAANG isn’t even attempting to hide it anymore, and again, you are posting on HN and clearly know how these companies operate. If you use their service you are engaging in a transaction with them. No one is forced to us…

> When you use these services the cost is the monetization of your data.

True. And if not using the services meant that those companies wouldn't spy on me, then I would have no complaint -- I already don't use their services. But it doesn't.

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

#236

Post by zzo38computer »

api wrote: post #226
zzo38computer wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run my own email server, and use a separate address per correspondent. This avoids spam entirely. I have sometimes got some spam from some addresses but simply disable that address and then the problem is gone.

That's too much time and work for 99% of users, even tech-savvy ones. Think of it this way: lets say you value your time at $50/hour (very conservative for a tech-savvy person). If it takes an hour a month to admin that box, that's a $50/month e-mail service you have not including VPS/VM cost.

Yes, although I am not asking everyone to do it. I am only saying I do it. It is the same protocol as everyone else's email, I just set it up my own way. Other people who like to do can try this too, but I am not trying to ask everyone to do who does not want to do.

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

#237

Post by [deleted] »

zackmorris wrote: post #217

I'm more worried about technological and legal chokeholds on free expression like GDPR, whose main effect was to nag users with a popup about cookies on every major website. To me, it feels like the original possibility of inventing something, posting it online and earning a passive income is all but dead today. Too many hurdles now must be overcome. You pretty much have to learn a programming language, containerizat…

[deleted]

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

#238

Post by throwaway17_17 »

JohnFen wrote: post #235
throwaway17_17 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not trying to be antagonistic, but how is anyone (particularly the assumed tech-savvy users of HN) forced into the ‘spying.’ When you use these services the cost is the monetization of your data. FAANG isn’t even attempting to hide it anymore, and again, you are posting on HN and clearly know how these companies operate. If you use their service you are engaging in a transaction with them. No one is forced to us…

> When you use these services the cost is the monetization of your data. True. And if not using the services meant that those companies wouldn't spy on me, then I would have no complaint -- I already don't use their services. But it doesn't.

I’m genuinely uncertain as to how your data is being collected if you are not using these services, and again I’m not trying to argue or disagree with the underlying thesis that tracking/spying is a net negative, but I do want to understand the assertion that your personal data is being collected by companies you have no interaction with.

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

#240

Post by ewzimm »

gravitas wrote: post #229
ewzimm wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

September 1993 Internet use shows the silliness of the idea of the death of the old Internet. In 1993, "...the World Wide Web, has seen the number of daily queries explode from almost 100,000 requests in June to almost 400,000 in October" https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/03/business/business-technol... There are now over 4.5 billion Internet users. If even 0.002% of them make just one daily query on the web of the "ol…

It was a tongue in cheek sarcastic comment, my friend. Whole new paragraph, smiley face at the end, fun link to the "me, too!" history, you know - lighthearted and jovial.

Intent understood! It's a classic turning point in Internet history, and I think the massive rise in traffic to 400,000 queries per day is the perfect example of how much bigger things are today and how all those old paradigms are even more alive now than they were then.
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