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Disqus, a dark commenting system

web.archive.org

81–90 of 271 posts

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#81

The author of the post runs a competitor called Hyvor Talk (he discloses this at the end). I've had hyvor talk for more than a year. I don't run a blog thats very popular, but it has been quite easy to integrate (I use React, Gatsby/ static side generation, and Hyvor Talk has a react component). An example of the system is at the bottom of that blog post. There used to be a free tier, but now there isn't. I am only s…

Try remark42. Free, open source.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#82
I have (had) a Disqus account that I connected to via my google account. I say had because I haven't been able to login in a year or so via firefox. I just get a page that says "There was an error submitting the form. If you're having difficulty, try repeating the action on https://disqus.com" with an annoying meme gift on the background. Luckily the title of the page says "Embed: CSRF verification failed (403)" but I have not been able to find a way to fix it. Oh well, I guess I won't be commenting on any site with disqus anytime soon.

I wish there was some kind of service or plugin (preferably not based on a centralized service) where one could easily leave comments on any site even if the site itself did not support comments.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#83
post #77
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hosting, curating, and moderating Hacker News is certainly adjacent to YC's business and ostensibly has some profit motive. I appreciate that it's also a dark-pattern-free public service, but it's not a coincidence that one of the best tech news and discussion boards is hosted by one of the premier incubator/accelerator shops.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#84
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Newspapers and cable both heavily rely on ads ... Cryptocurrencies seem like it technically could work, but I don't see that happening. Because of the fundamental asymmetry in the law: advertising+tracking don't require AML/KYC, cryptocurrencies (mostly) do. If your users pay you with their attention or tracking data, you're not required to verify their identities, ask them if they're terrorists, store copies of th…

The use case I was thinking of for individuals is more like paying a nickel to read an article. I'm not really familiar with AML/KYC requirements, but I'm not sure I see the need. I would imagine most people would want a basic account so they could revisit paid content later. Any laundering would get caught looking at your business' finances (what you do with the money) or tracking crypto accounts in a more tradition…

Brave got a tap on the shoulder from the government and was told they had to collect all that data in order to release crypto payments to the owners of the websites they'd been collecting micropayments for:

https://preview.redd.it/52bkflf0cld31.jpg?width=462&format=p...

https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032158891-Wha...

I disagree with a lot of Brave's approach. However their experience shows that this problem isn't theoretical. One company has already managed to deliver frictionless micropayments, and was told by the government that if they didn't add some friction back in (AML/KYC), executives would be going to prison.

Not cool.

This also led to a real mess with the operators of archive.today, who don't live in the USA and apparently aren't supported by the AML/KYC process being used. So a fairly large amount of money collected in order to support them is stuck and can't be paid out:

https://blog.archive.today/post/626174398020403200/please-pr...

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#86

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.

> 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 problem is not everyone has the means to pay for everything.

E.g. what if Youtube and other video sites switched to a paid only model? Youtube is full of educational videos which can help a poor person to learn stuff and make his situation better. Such persons would be at a disadvantage if they can't afford Youtube's fee.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#88

What are good self-hosted alternatives? I remember looking at Commento ( https://github.com/adtac/commento ) before, but if people have had good experiences with others I'd like to hear them.

My list should give you some ideas: https://darekkay.com/blog/static-site-comments/#self-hosted

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#89
post #53

I've stopped using Disqus on my blog for exactly the reasons described. I've switched to https://commento.io/ and the site started loading noticably faster.

Every time I see Disqus on a site I wonder why people use it. The page load lag alone is bad enough.

It's free, easy to integrate, many people already have an account. Those were the reasons for me. But in the end, the drawbacks were enough for me to remove Disqus.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#90

"If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold."

If you are paying for it, you are the customer, and you're still being sold. From the article:

> When you provide a free product, money should come from somewhere. Disqus uses advertising for that. Now, I subscribed to a paid plan trial of Disqus to see if things change or not. No! Even in the paid plans, the same pixels are loaded on the client-side.

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