11–20 of 67 posts
The argument that browsers should stop trying to become an OS on top of the OS (e.g. webUSB) deserves better than this overly emotional rant. The browser that has been holding the line in this respect, Safari, is dismissed without explanation.
(content blockers are opt-out - and you have no ability to even know what is loading)
> Enough is enough. What I don't like about this post is too much emotion, not much action. > If you’re a Google engineer who is still working on AMP, you are a disgrace to your field. Really? Career shaming? That's very low of the author to do. Why are they a disgrace?
Someone actively sits down and codes all the things that make the world a worse place, and they often do it after and despite all of the arguments for why it is bad; maybe you disagree that AMP is a problem--I, honestly, haven't made a decision there yet--but to be very blunt about it: we tend to attribute too many things to organizations and companies when there should be a list of very concrete names of engineers w…
I used to really be happy about computers - they made people's lives better. But business interests have really changed how computers work and I truly hope we can get them to work for us again.
> Mozilla just fired everyone relevant to focus on crap no one asked for like Pocket, and fad nonsense like a paid VPN service and virtual reality tech. Not disagreeing with the rest of this, but I love Pocket.
You can see that this is the case when you look at Safari which tried to limit features. It's arguable whether that's because Apple limits the best APIs to native apps, or those features don't make sense or because of a combination of the two. But it's undeniable that web developers mercilessly criticized Apple and relentlessly put pressure on them to keep adding all sorts of nonsense to the browser. Ironically this is why today Safari has a partially negative reputation, which the author seems to be unaware of.
To put it bluntly, the web as shaped by these two forces is fucked. There is no one that matters which still cares about the idea of a user-focused, privacy-respecting web. There's too much money to be made in an ad and tracking laden, kitchen sink APIs web.
> Enough is enough. What I don't like about this post is too much emotion, not much action. > If you’re a Google engineer who is still working on AMP, you are a disgrace to your field. Really? Career shaming? That's very low of the author to do. Why are they a disgrace?
Recently we learned on HN of the revolving door between Mozilla and Facebook, straight from the mouths of former Mozilla/current Facebook employees. They were even proud of helping the people that were recently let go by Mozilla with jobs at Facebook, as if it were totally normal to switch from privacy and open web defender to privacy and open web villain. I mean it is totally normal apparently.
And really, I think that the moment of shame those people will feel at being called a disgrace, if they're even capable of feeling that any more will go away latest at the time that their fat paycheck hits their bank accounts. To be fair, they probably don't even read HN, Drew's blog or give a crap about any of this.
It's undeniable that someday chrome will end, and when it dies several Manhattan projects worth of work will die with it, with very few positive side effects besides V8. But hey I guess serving ads is really important?
> Mozilla just fired everyone relevant to focus on crap no one asked for like Pocket, and fad nonsense like a paid VPN service and virtual reality tech. Not disagreeing with the rest of this, but I love Pocket.
I hate that something which only exists to data mine, or serve ads is enabled (by default) in my web browser.
Google has monopolized the power over the web. And soon they are going to use it to their advantage.
Just curious, why the author thinks that Safari is a joke?
> Enough is enough. What I don't like about this post is too much emotion, not much action. > If you’re a Google engineer who is still working on AMP, you are a disgrace to your field. Really? Career shaming? That's very low of the author to do. Why are they a disgrace?
Silicon Valley is a really nice club with zero consequences for those that have been screwing up the internet and online privacy for decades. Therefore I don't think it's appropriate to now complain that somebody's calling these people a disgrace to their field. Recently we learned on HN of the revolving door between Mozilla and Facebook, straight from the mouths of former Mozilla/current Facebook employees. They wer…
I mean, Google bankrolled Mozilla for years, nobody questioned or even opposed it, yet Mozilla criticises them on privacy, and now look what happened.
But what do we do? I would like to take action against this, but this post doesn't really do anything about this. I fear that we will see more posts like this screaming into the blog post void and nothing comes of it, since you said they don't even read HN or Drew's blog.