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Mozilla goes incubator with ‘Fix The Internet’ startup early-stage investments

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Re: Mozilla goes incubator with ‘Fix The Internet’ startup early-stage investments

#41

Post by myu701 »

pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #35
cousin_it wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my "fix the internet" idea: build a search engine that is itself ad-free, and searches over only the ad-free segment of the web. More options: allow users to exclude sites with ads, sites with ecommerce, sites with tracking, or simply allow users to build and share lists of sites to exclude. Rationale: the unmonetized or under-monetized web was awesome, a lot of it still exists under the radar now, and it woul…

https://wiby.me

Added to my FF search. wonderful.

Re: Mozilla goes incubator with ‘Fix The Internet’ startup early-stage investments

#42

Post by gambler »

DevKoala wrote: post #40
gambler wrote: post #38

>Developers in a variety of domains were invited to apply, as long as they fit the themes of empowerment, privacy, decentralization, community and so on. Funny. I'm seeing how the Web is being fucked over in exactly these areas, and yet I don't see Mozilla doing anything to stop it. Quite the opposite, they contribute to it and follow Google's lead on most of the issues. Here is the simplest and incredibly impactful…

Who will host the webpage in your scenario?

Really, this is the question I'm being asked on Hacker News? Are we at the point where an average user here never heard of BitTorrent, Tor and other similar systems? Or is it a way to demand for me to post a complete description of the protocol that would support the feature above? It doesn't matter what the specific protocol is. What matters is that this is not even a goal and it should be.

Re: Mozilla goes incubator with ‘Fix The Internet’ startup early-stage investments

#43

Post by pwdisswordfish2 »

The internet could be "fixed" by regulating advertising. In the beginning there were rules. No commercial use. When that was lifted we started the descent into where things are now. It began with a lawyer posting an ad about immigration services to Usenet. It has come a long way since then. All the while, the web browser has supported always advertising, making it easier and easier to consume ads, buy and sell via the web.

People in the 1990's who wanted "e-commerce" got their wish. Certain companies and individuals have become wealthy beyond imagination. Companies are hording cash. However it is not an equal playing field.

Governments have heretofore been unwilling to regulate. Some, those who are proifiting from the status quo, might say this is starting to change. Even if this is true, the change is very slow. In Mozilla Corporation's domicile, there has been no significant change.

Mozilla is funded indirectly by advertising. Their funding comes from Google. Google's funding comes from advertisers.

Re: Mozilla goes incubator with ‘Fix The Internet’ startup early-stage investments

#44

Post by cousin_it »

pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #35
cousin_it wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my "fix the internet" idea: build a search engine that is itself ad-free, and searches over only the ad-free segment of the web. More options: allow users to exclude sites with ads, sites with ecommerce, sites with tracking, or simply allow users to build and share lists of sites to exclude. Rationale: the unmonetized or under-monetized web was awesome, a lot of it still exists under the radar now, and it woul…

https://wiby.me

Very cool! Though it seems more like a hand-picked directory than a search engine with a crawler, as it doesn't find quite a few good noncommercial pages that I know exist.

Re: Mozilla goes incubator with ‘Fix The Internet’ startup early-stage investments

#45

Post by dependenttypes »

gkoberger wrote: post #23
gonational wrote: post #11

Real talk, Mozilla; would you be interested in funding a privacy-oriented fork of Firefox with all the unnecessary extras (Pocket, etc.) stripped out? I’m thinking something just like Firefox, except unencumbered by Google or other corporate affiliations, etc. I think this would be the best first step towards any kind of “fixing the Internet”.

It's tough. People at Mozilla care so much about privacy, to the point that (when I worked there 2010-2012), they refused to do "services" the same way Google did (aka a login and a central server). So as a result, Chrome "just worked" and Firefox was completely unusable. The people at Mozilla really care about privacy. But they also have to build something people can actually use. That means finding a balance betwee…

> they refused to do "services" the same way Google did

What services?

> More specifically, though, what would you strip?

Telemetry and the normandy/shield backdoor first of all. Then remove the google analytics from the about:addons page (or at least let adblockers work on it). Then let adblockers work on the mozilla pages. Then disable things like pings, beacons, etc by default and integrate more tor browser patches.

Firefox right now is the browser that calls back the most https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604...

As for Pocket, Mozilla promised ages ago to make the server foss, still no luck with it.

Re: Mozilla goes incubator with ‘Fix The Internet’ startup early-stage investments

#46

Post by DevKoala »

gambler wrote: post #42
DevKoala wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who will host the webpage in your scenario?

Really, this is the question I'm being asked on Hacker News? Are we at the point where an average user here never heard of BitTorrent, Tor and other similar systems? Or is it a way to demand for me to post a complete description of the protocol that would support the feature above? It doesn't matter what the specific protocol is. What matters is that this is not even a goal and it should be.

Yes, I am interested in your idea. I agree it is something should happen. However, who would host these sites? I don’t see the solution yet. Maybe you have put more thought into it.

Edit: you sound a bit rattled. I didn’t mean to instigate.

Re: Mozilla goes incubator with ‘Fix The Internet’ startup early-stage investments

#47

Post by chris_f »

cousin_it wrote: post #22
lightninglu10 wrote: post #6

Hey all, Patrick here & one of the mentors for the Mozilla Builders "fix-the-internet" incubator https://builders.mozilla.community/ . We have 3 different offerings for this Summer. All incubator style, meaning you meet weekly or biweekly with mentors and we really try to help drive you from point A to point C. 1. $75k investment in a startup. MUST be serious about wanting to build something awesome and put in the ha…

Here's my "fix the internet" idea: build a search engine that is itself ad-free, and searches over only the ad-free segment of the web. More options: allow users to exclude sites with ads, sites with ecommerce, sites with tracking, or simply allow users to build and share lists of sites to exclude. Rationale: the unmonetized or under-monetized web was awesome, a lot of it still exists under the radar now, and it woul…

I launched a new search engine a few months ago and have been looking at several alternative ways to fund it, but none of them seem to be a viable path.

The best balance of privacy and user experience seems to be display ads related to search term context that don't do any tracking (like billboards in the real world). But even that isn't an easy proposition and will need a custom network built to generate those type of ads.

A lot of people say they will pay for a search engine, but it is such a small niche that I believe the cost would be prohibitively expensive, and the search engine would probably still be subpar to Google in many respect. Would you pay $10/month, what about $29? Those are most likely where the monthly fees would have to be for this type of product.

Re: Mozilla goes incubator with ‘Fix The Internet’ startup early-stage investments

#48

Post by naasking »

pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #43

The internet could be "fixed" by regulating advertising. In the beginning there were rules. No commercial use. When that was lifted we started the descent into where things are now. It began with a lawyer posting an ad about immigration services to Usenet. It has come a long way since then. All the while, the web browser has supported always advertising, making it easier and easier to consume ads, buy and sell via th…

> The internet could be "fixed" by regulating advertising.

Regulation always requires coordination, which is simply not possible at internet scale. Facebook and Twitter can't even regulate the content on their own platforms, and you're talking about regulation at an even larger scale against strong interests with large financial reserves.

What's needed is a secure/private by default browser sandbox so these interests have no say in how their content is consumed. Take a look the extremes Gemini has gone to ensure privacy [1]. Some of those can be relaxed without compromising privacy much, but a serious effort along those lines is what's actually needed.

[1] https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

Re: Mozilla goes incubator with ‘Fix The Internet’ startup early-stage investments

#49

Post by pythux »

gkoberger wrote: post #23
gonational wrote: post #11

Real talk, Mozilla; would you be interested in funding a privacy-oriented fork of Firefox with all the unnecessary extras (Pocket, etc.) stripped out? I’m thinking something just like Firefox, except unencumbered by Google or other corporate affiliations, etc. I think this would be the best first step towards any kind of “fixing the Internet”.

It's tough. People at Mozilla care so much about privacy, to the point that (when I worked there 2010-2012), they refused to do "services" the same way Google did (aka a login and a central server). So as a result, Chrome "just worked" and Firefox was completely unusable. The people at Mozilla really care about privacy. But they also have to build something people can actually use. That means finding a balance betwee…

> Google is just a default search; data isn't being sent to them.

You mean, apart from everything typed in the URL bar by default?

Re: Mozilla goes incubator with ‘Fix The Internet’ startup early-stage investments

#50

Post by throwaway914892 »

lightninglu10 wrote: post #6

Hey all, Patrick here & one of the mentors for the Mozilla Builders "fix-the-internet" incubator https://builders.mozilla.community/ . We have 3 different offerings for this Summer. All incubator style, meaning you meet weekly or biweekly with mentors and we really try to help drive you from point A to point C. 1. $75k investment in a startup. MUST be serious about wanting to build something awesome and put in the ha…

Where does the revenue come from if the focus isn't on making money? 75k may be a start, but it will only last a couple months at max.

The better the ideas to fix the internet, the less they will generate revenue. So that's kind of a catch-22. It often takes years to build an idea, and tens of millions $.

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