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Disqus, a dark commenting system

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Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#71

Post by tal8d »

rebuilder wrote: post #67
tal8d wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is debatable, but what isn't is the fact that the third option exists - which never gets mentioned in the tired old "If you don't disable that pesky adblocker - you'll be forced to pay!" posts.

Yes, the hobbyist web still exists. But it's hampered by the much larger commercial web IMO. The influx of members to any non-commercial web community is disturbed by the commercial entities that draw so much of the attention that to most people, it seems like there isn't anything else on the web. The big fish use up so much oxygen that the little fish in the pond shrivel up. They live, but in a stunted form.

Well you're going to have a hard to reasoning about it when you stick with the predator/prey, attention economy, zero-sum game analogies. A man running a site cataloging ancient internally generated IBM typeset documents... what higher unstunted form is he aspiring to - despite the machinations of unshriveled fish?

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#75

Post by hombre_fatal »

tal8d wrote: post #18
ivolimmen wrote: post #2

At some point, and I feel it is close, we need to subscribe to stuff and simply pay for the stuff we want and need to use. The internet always have been a place where most stuff is free and people got used to that. At some point after that the dark parts and ad parts of the web will reside; but I do not think it will completely disappear.

I've been around long enough to remember a time when the web was full of content that didn't originate from profit motive. Just a bunch of people talking about their interests and sharing their creations. Even the stuff that was commercially motivated was largely innocuous, because they were focused more on brand awareness - which doesn't need a surveillance system. All that personal interest stuff is still out there…

Hobbyist stuff still exists. But even back then, you're still talking about a small fraction of internet content.

We don't want just the fruits of everyone's hobbyist weekend warrior free-time. We want it to be profitable to make the stuff we want to consume so that we get better content than hobby/charity content.

Also, most things aren't hobbyist cheap. Even in the era you're looking upon nostalgically, consider message boards. You'd either use a freemium solution like Proboards/Ezboard or you'd pay for hosting which could cost you $100+/mo if your forum was popular.

I have a feeling every time people talk about the old hobbyist internet, they're talking about brochure Angelfire websites they themselves never spent all that much time on. Most people want better content than that just like most people want to watch Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, not hobbyists on Youtube.

Yet these threads always sound like "remember the good ol days before Breaking Bad when it was just hobbyist vlogs on Youtube? ahh, those were the days even though I didn't watch vlogs, they were boring."

Maybe things were different before the AOL era back when there was almost nothing online that we want to do online today, but I'm in my 30s and first got internet in the 90s with AOL and "profit motives" were always the driving force for why there were compelling things to do online, like playing Age of Empires multiplayer through MSN's Internet Gaming Zone platform in 1997.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#76

Post by spoonjim »

tal8d wrote: post #18
ivolimmen wrote: post #2

At some point, and I feel it is close, we need to subscribe to stuff and simply pay for the stuff we want and need to use. The internet always have been a place where most stuff is free and people got used to that. At some point after that the dark parts and ad parts of the web will reside; but I do not think it will completely disappear.

I've been around long enough to remember a time when the web was full of content that didn't originate from profit motive. Just a bunch of people talking about their interests and sharing their creations. Even the stuff that was commercially motivated was largely innocuous, because they were focused more on brand awareness - which doesn't need a surveillance system. All that personal interest stuff is still out there…

There are plenty of personal HTML pages out there, probably more than in 1997. But the fact is that commercial entities have created far more streamlined and addictive experiences.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#77

Post by pjc50 »

tal8d wrote: post #18
ivolimmen wrote: post #2

At some point, and I feel it is close, we need to subscribe to stuff and simply pay for the stuff we want and need to use. The internet always have been a place where most stuff is free and people got used to that. At some point after that the dark parts and ad parts of the web will reside; but I do not think it will completely disappear.

I've been around long enough to remember a time when the web was full of content that didn't originate from profit motive. Just a bunch of people talking about their interests and sharing their creations. Even the stuff that was commercially motivated was largely innocuous, because they were focused more on brand awareness - which doesn't need a surveillance system. All that personal interest stuff is still out there…

The web is still full of content that didn't originate from profit motive - you're looking at some - but it's wrapped up in and presented on for-profit sites.

The friction point is not so much presenting/hosting content as "discovery" - finding interesting new people and new content. And that's much more complicated because it's full of perverse incentives.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#78

Post by h_anna_h »

Daho0n wrote: post #34
seanhunter wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair to say this is necessary but not sufficient. GDPR covers users within GDPR countries but also European data subjects wherever they are in the world.

This gets repeated over and over on HN but it isn't true. I feel this is because so many try to make GDPR seem too hard and breaking everything (likely people with something to lose). GDPR is for data in the EU . That is it. Not data outside the EU and not people outside the EU. An American in the EU is covered, an EU citizen in the US is not. What you are saying would require that the EU could create laws that were…

> I feel this is because so many try to make GDPR seem too hard and breaking everything (likely people with something to lose).

Or people who wish to extend the reach of GDPR so that others outside of the EU are protected too.

> What you are saying would require that the EU could create laws that were above the Supreme Court in the US for example

This is not true for multiple reasons. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003 specifically "Authorizes fines and/or imprisonment for up to 30 years for U.S. citizens or residents who engage in illicit sexual conduct abroad". The EU could punish US companies that have offices in the EU or income from the EU. Alternatively it could sanction them.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#79

Post by mhb »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #45
ivolimmen wrote: post #2

At some point, and I feel it is close, we need to subscribe to stuff and simply pay for the stuff we want and need to use. The internet always have been a place where most stuff is free and people got used to that. At some point after that the dark parts and ad parts of the web will reside; but I do not think it will completely disappear.

While I agree that more people should be willing to pay for services, I'm less certain that it would actually make a huge difference. Once upon a time premium TV stations, like HBO, had no ads. After all, you were paying for them directly. Then they realized they could charge you a monthly subscription fee and show ads. And all the theorizing about "but then a competitor that doesn't show ads would take all their cus…

Just a minor quibble about the Kindle since I'm very appreciative that there is a choice of buying one with or without ads.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#80

Post by DelightOne »

Un1corn wrote: post #42
strogonoff wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a service is paid while allowing itself to engage in data mining and monetisation, it will lose most of its paying users to a more ethical competitor as soon as someone bothers to read the ToS. If a paid service engages in data mining in violation of its own ToS, it is liable to be punished by law as soon as that leaks, so that’s another counter-incentive. The expectation of free service is what enables shady prac…

>it will lose most of its paying users to a more ethical competitor as soon as someone bothers to read the ToS So never? People don't read the ToS and certainly don't judge services by it. It seems people have come to accept surveillance capitalism as a fact of life

And where do they get this information from.. only a few news sites pick stuff like this up. Do the relevant users have this news site open at the correct hour to catch it? Likely not.

Most news is not actionable for the person reading it, except for popular apps where there are most users. The information needs to get to the right people at the right time to be actionable.

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