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Tech giants are hijacking the internet

dw.com

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Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#21

Post by rambambram »

charcircuit wrote: post #7

Big tech is big because they built sustainable products that appeal to billions of people. There was no hijacking. Anyone can still make their own site and become popular. TikTok was able to become the number one site despite not being from big tech.

Exactly, it's just a scare tactic to make us and 'the enemies' believe that there's no way out and we already lost. The solution is in front of us, all that time. I follow a lot of blogs I scrambled together over the years from this place called HN, I do that with RSS. It's enough for me to get a good and healthy information diet (all your blogposts together are way more interesting than any social media platform can offer me). The only thing I miss are feeds with images, to have an image pop-up in my RSS-based timeline is always nice. And some kind of replacement for Youtube would also be nice to have.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#22

Post by Const-me »

charcircuit wrote: post #7

Big tech is big because they built sustainable products that appeal to billions of people. There was no hijacking. Anyone can still make their own site and become popular. TikTok was able to become the number one site despite not being from big tech.

> built sustainable products

Google is spending many millions of dollars per year developing and maintaining free software like Chrome and Android.

If the government will miraculously enforce the current anti-competition laws and break the company like they did with Bell Systems in 1982, these Google’s products will suddenly become unsustainable.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#23

Post by nologic01 »

Well DW could do something about it by at least adding the fediverse on their abominable "follow us on X, Y, Z".

DW does not even have an RSS feed for chris sake.

The press is complicit in the hijacking of the internet. They made a Faustian pact. Now they are crying foul.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#24

Post by nologic01 »

charcircuit wrote: post #7

Big tech is big because they built sustainable products that appeal to billions of people. There was no hijacking. Anyone can still make their own site and become popular. TikTok was able to become the number one site despite not being from big tech.

These "products" are built on deceit. They are only sustainable due to regulatory capture.

There has never been so much wealth and power amassed (legally) by exploiting the cracks of governance.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#25

Post by Pako »

EGreg wrote: post #18

You could rely on government to try to rein them in — good luck. Didn’t work with Ma Bell, the pieces still charged $3 a minute. Or you could contribute to open protocols, and do to the tech giants what: The Web did to AOL, MSN, etc. VoIP did to AT&T, Sprint, etc. Wikipedia did to Britannica OpenStreetMap will do to Google Maps etc. Open, permissionless networks beat closed, proprietary ones once they are good enough…

It took me a while to even begin to understand what Qbix is trying to sell people on. In my humble opinion the website is a disaster, especially on mobile. After a few minutes all I could gather was that it claims itself to be a "social operating system" (nice buzzword). After exploring the GitHub readme it got a bit clearer but it kinda "just" seems like WordPress but for websites seeking out more user interaction?

I have not looked into it too deeply, but I also have not seen any mention of any sort of open standards that would lift Qbix from being another vendor to be locked into. No OID/OID Connect, ActivityPub, etc. Instead it mentions integration with Facebook of all things. Where is the openness?

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#26

Post by opportune »

EGreg wrote: post #18

You could rely on government to try to rein them in — good luck. Didn’t work with Ma Bell, the pieces still charged $3 a minute. Or you could contribute to open protocols, and do to the tech giants what: The Web did to AOL, MSN, etc. VoIP did to AT&T, Sprint, etc. Wikipedia did to Britannica OpenStreetMap will do to Google Maps etc. Open, permissionless networks beat closed, proprietary ones once they are good enough…

I went to your website, selected “I’m a software developer”, tried to select “what it’s all about” and nothing happened. Doesn’t really give me confidence in the technology or make me inclined to spend time watching the videos on the same page

I’m using Firefox Focus on an iPhone 14, iOS 16.6.1

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#28

Post by opportune »

charcircuit wrote: post #7

Big tech is big because they built sustainable products that appeal to billions of people. There was no hijacking. Anyone can still make their own site and become popular. TikTok was able to become the number one site despite not being from big tech.

Completely agree. I was just commenting on this earlier today: instead of complaining about American big tech incessantly, the EU needs to actually develop viable software products that users want to use. Until they figure out how to do that for more than just CRUD websites, they have no alternatives.

I do think that antitrust should stop big tech companies from acquiring potential competitors (or all their customers) though. Facebook should not have been allowed to acquire WhatsApp. Microsoft should not have been allowed to acquire Activision.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#29

Post by marban »

nologic01 wrote: post #23

Well DW could do something about it by at least adding the fediverse on their abominable "follow us on X, Y, Z". DW does not even have an RSS feed for chris sake. The press is complicit in the hijacking of the internet. They made a Faustian pact. Now they are crying foul.

They have plenty of feeds.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#30

Post by binchol »

nologic01 wrote: post #23

Well DW could do something about it by at least adding the fediverse on their abominable "follow us on X, Y, Z". DW does not even have an RSS feed for chris sake. The press is complicit in the hijacking of the internet. They made a Faustian pact. Now they are crying foul.

Why would they bother adding the fediverse, it's mostly useless, would provide no benefit to them, and they'd probably get defederated eventually for publishing something someone doesn't like.
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