Tech giants are hijacking the internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#51

Post by throwawaaarrgh » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 11:11 AM UTC

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.

How will anyone find your site in order for it to become popular, if Internet giants gatekeep the only methods that people use to find or access things?

Internet giants control your browser, your smartphone, your search engine, your digital assistant, your DNS, most of the traffic going through CDNs, advertising, online shopping, app purchases, news, etc. Most of the internet is only accessible through the giants. Most of the experiences people have with the rest of the world is through them. (I'm being charitable; it's likely all the experiences people have with the rest of the world is through them)

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#52

Post by bullen » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 11:13 AM UTC

diarrhea wrote: post #48

bullen wrote: post #16

These are the symptoms. The diseases are centrally controlled IP, DNS and root certificates. The removal attempt of HTTP/1.1 is the biggest censorship in history. The only way to fight back is to self host DNS, HTTP and SMTP at home.

> The removal attempt of HTTP/1.1 is the biggest censorship in history. I’d love some more context on this.

All browsers now default to blocking HTTP URLs.

Anti-virus software blocks native applications that use HTTP.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#53

Post by sprash » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 11:27 AM UTC

squarefoot wrote: post #31

bullen wrote: post #16

These are the symptoms. The diseases are centrally controlled IP, DNS and root certificates. The removal attempt of HTTP/1.1 is the biggest censorship in history. The only way to fight back is to self host DNS, HTTP and SMTP at home.

> The only way to fight back is to self host DNS, HTTP and SMTP at home. Agreed, but DNS at least needs to be shared via encrypted p2p, to avoid congesting someones broadband with million requests and prevent the inevitable hijacking by malicious actors.

> needs to be shared via encrypted p2p

You mean blockchain? DNS has been solved with namecoin more than a decade ago. One of the few blockchain applications that actually make sense.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#54

Post by JKCalhoun » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 11:30 AM UTC

crvdgc wrote: post #45

> Also, it must be ensured that user data is accessible to all competitors. This doesn't sound like a good idea. The collection of user data and the underlying advertising business model is a problem to be removed, not a playing field for more competition and "improvement".

I assumed the idea was that if you open it up to everyone it becomes less valuable to the tech giants.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#55

Post by pluc » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 11:32 AM UTC

They're hijacking your internet. I'm not on social media and let me tell you the rest of the web still exists. Its pace is much slower, but it's there.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#56

Post by JKCalhoun » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 11:33 AM UTC

mediumsmart wrote: post #10

These tech giants are the sum of their users and nobody else is using the internet they are “hijacking”. Enjoy

Do Facebook users want to exclude me (no FB account) from their pages?

I think that's what Facebook wants.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#57

Post by Borg3 » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 11:35 AM UTC

pluc wrote: post #55

They're hijacking your internet. I'm not on social media and let me tell you the rest of the web still exists. Its pace is much slower, but it's there.

Yeah. Same here, mostly self-hosted. Running VPNs everywhere. Internet is still good transport layer.

Old web I care is still there too, but I mirror everything I feel I will need in the future. Just in case.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#58

Post by j16sdiz » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 11:38 AM UTC

doggerel wrote: post #36

Slow news day at DW.com.

It's not.

They are just shaping the narrative for Google antitrust case.

Check the number of article on Google's case. "Something" is happening just today.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#59

Post by CalRobert » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 11:51 AM UTC

pluc wrote: post #55

They're hijacking your internet. I'm not on social media and let me tell you the rest of the web still exists. Its pace is much slower, but it's there.

For now - but with changes like WEI (attestation) you may find that you have little choice to be part of "the rest of the web" unless you use an Approved Browser to do only Approved Things.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#60

Post by CalRobert » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 11:52 AM UTC

crvdgc wrote: post #45

> Also, it must be ensured that user data is accessible to all competitors. This doesn't sound like a good idea. The collection of user data and the underlying advertising business model is a problem to be removed, not a playing field for more competition and "improvement".

The only way to make it inaccessible to competitors is to make it impractical to access for the user themselves. GDPR demands this portability and in theory, it's awesome. Though I haven't seen a lot of examples yet it should make it easy to do things like port your favourites and listening history from spotify to another platform. It's your data, after all.