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Disqus, a dark commenting system

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Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#211

Post by bartread »

andros wrote: post #208

I don't know why you use Disqus when there is an Opensource alternative: Glosa --> https://github.com/glosa/glosa-server

Several reasons immediately spring to mind:

- it's yet another dependency on the back end (for a static site you may not even have a back end or a server you can install it on),

- it requires Java, which is possibly yet another dependency and platform,

- both of these need patching and updates

- I do not love comment storage in JSON because it complicates backups

- needs email configuration which can be something of a deliverability minefield, but Disqus handles this out of the box

Fundamentally it's more work/complexity than some people will be willing to put in. Disqus is easy. Just drop it into your relevant page templates and it'll work.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#212

Post by michaelmrose »

pdimitar wrote: post #124
spinningslate wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm conflicted about the free tier thing. On the one hand, I get that personal/non-commercial sites don't generate revenue - so shelling out for a comment system is unattractive. On the other hand: the whole reason that shady, dark pattern, privacy killers like disqus exist is because people won't pay for stuff. It's at least partly cultural. We'll pay for hosting, or internet access. Why won't we pay for other servi…

> It's at least partly cultural. We'll pay for hosting, or internet access. Why won't we pay for other services if they're valuable to us? 1. Too many separate subscriptions become hard to manage. Example: the banks in my country don't allow direct access of my account movements to any budgeting apps so I have to tally everything manually because I want to track my expenses. There is a business idea here somewhere: a…

Paypal can manage subscriptions and cut them off just don't expect them to give your money back in a timely fashion. I got ripped off by the New York Times glitchy interactions and it took months to give some of the money back.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#215

Post by thesuitonym »

nexthash wrote: post #206
xfz wrote: post #94

Title should probably have [Advert] prefix or something. That said, I deleted my Disqus account as part of a general cleanup and I'm glad I did. The web needs to shift more to a model where people pay openly for services; ideally with micropayments or a Spotify-like subscription to ensure a large user base. Free products are ok as a gateway to the paid product, but not if the business model relies on selling data (ei…

In my opinion, having to shell out small bits of money every time you hit a paywall on the Internet is just as bad as having your data sold. I wish there was a viable pay-once-for-all alternative to microservices for the Web, possibly even integrated with your Internet service provider bill.

Ah yes, let's go back to the cable paradigm, where I pay for four different versions of ESPN just because I want to watch Comedy Central.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#216

Post by breischl »

morpheos137 wrote: post #214

I am struggling to understand why anybody thought that "outsourcing" blog comments was a good idea. It seems like a really simple database function that could be self hosted easily.

When you want to do voting, moderation, new/hot/etc, handle potentially large loads, it can get to be a lot. Also, if you don't want anonymous commenters (because that contributes to spam and bad community) you get into the entire user/password management mess. Particularly if you're just some guy that wanted to blog stuff, rather than a content-centric media corporation. Plus there's some potential benefit to having a consistent identity across different sites.

FWIW, Facebook was doing the exact same thing. I think they still do, though I don't see it as much.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#217

Post by paulryanrogers »

dmos62 wrote: post #100
xfz wrote: post #94

Title should probably have [Advert] prefix or something. That said, I deleted my Disqus account as part of a general cleanup and I'm glad I did. The web needs to shift more to a model where people pay openly for services; ideally with micropayments or a Spotify-like subscription to ensure a large user base. Free products are ok as a gateway to the paid product, but not if the business model relies on selling data (ei…

Spotify relies on monopolizing your listening data. You should avoid it on the same premise. Delivering music is easy; their unique offering is the recommendation engine. There's no competition because there's no open listening data. If we could make it open, then you could have actual competition in the space (coincidentlly Spotify recommendations aren't great at the moment).

This reminds me I need to find an open source scrobbler compatible with Lastfm's API.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#218

Post by Quanttek »

> How does Disqus sell your visitors' data with thirdparties without your consent?

> Actually, you give them the consent when you agree to their privacy policy.

I doubt that this is legal according to the GDPR.

Also, didn't Mozilla also have a commenting system? https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/09/06/mozilla-washington-...

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#219

Post by pdimitar »

michaelmrose wrote: post #212
pdimitar wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's at least partly cultural. We'll pay for hosting, or internet access. Why won't we pay for other services if they're valuable to us? 1. Too many separate subscriptions become hard to manage. Example: the banks in my country don't allow direct access of my account movements to any budgeting apps so I have to tally everything manually because I want to track my expenses. There is a business idea here somewhere: a…

Paypal can manage subscriptions and cut them off just don't expect them to give your money back in a timely fashion. I got ripped off by the New York Times glitchy interactions and it took months to give some of the money back.

Yes, that's the problem right there -- incredible amount of dark patterns when you just want to unsub. This puts me off and I skipped a good amount of subs to popular services because of these horror stories.

That, plus PayPal is ripping you off with currency conversions.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#220

Post by asdff »

duckmysick wrote: post #108
pmlnr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, I think the problem with self-hosting vs. Medium is that it is harder for the authors to reach a large audience. To be honest, this sounds like profit thinking as well. Why would one need "wide audience" when it's about their interest and hobbies? They need sincere search engines, that's all.

Some people are proud of their work and they want to show it to others. The more people see it and appreciate it, the more validated and important the creators feel. It's like sending invitations to your birthday party. It feels bad when just one person shows up. > They need sincere search engines, that's all. What exactly are you suggesting to the content creators?

So what? You can still share your selfhosted blog article around the internet. Like the olden days. Or the modern days, where right now we are all reading someones selfhosted blog that was shared with us without using a restrictive platform like Medium. You can offer RSS or mailing lists. You don't need all this cruft to fix problems that have been solved 20 years ago.
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