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Tech giants are hijacking the internet

dw.com

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Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#81

Post by PierreProstata »

nologic01 wrote: post #24
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.

Exactly my thoughts, all those tech companies were famously unsustainable, then had to find ways to become sustainable (and profitable) and got way less attractive to users in the process.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#82

Post by josephcsible »

robertlagrant wrote: post #68
TrackerFF wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a couple of years from now, you're working on some stuff for a client. Client sends you a link, but you can't open the link with your non-chromium browser of choice - it's been built on tech provided by google, and google says: You can only use chrome to view this site. You try to download chrome, but since you once used some ad-block plugin, you've been banned from using all alphabet products. Google has als…

I think we can all think of potential futures. I don't see why this one is particularly likely. Google has open sourced the guts of its browser so others can make non-Google controlled browsers, and they fund one of the two only real competitors to their browser.

> you can't open the link with your non-chromium browser of choice - it's been built on tech provided by google, and google says: You can only use chrome to view this site.

That part is particularly likely because that's literally what Web Environment Integrity does.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#83

Post by sanderjd »

TrackerFF wrote: post #65
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.

Imagine a couple of years from now, you're working on some stuff for a client. Client sends you a link, but you can't open the link with your non-chromium browser of choice - it's been built on tech provided by google, and google says: You can only use chrome to view this site. You try to download chrome, but since you once used some ad-block plugin, you've been banned from using all alphabet products. Google has als…

None of this seems very likely.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#84

Post by shortrounddev2 »

jug wrote: post #47
nologic01 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where exactly? Visible through your rose tinted glasses? There is no visual hint on the page (RSS has a well established logo) and my rss reader does not autodiscover it from the main page.

Give me a break. You literally just type dw.com/rss. Logotypes or not this is pretty much a default address for RSS discovery.

Having to type the URL manually is very poor discoverability. Most people don't use the internet this way

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#85

Post by LinuxBender »

TrackerFF wrote: post #65
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.

Imagine a couple of years from now, you're working on some stuff for a client. Client sends you a link, but you can't open the link with your non-chromium browser of choice - it's been built on tech provided by google, and google says: You can only use chrome to view this site. You try to download chrome, but since you once used some ad-block plugin, you've been banned from using all alphabet products. Google has als…

I send them instructions how to SFTP files to me if it's important enough they will do it. I've managed to get lawyers to use SFTP albeit with a GUI [0a]. If anyone wants to test it out, put "ohblog.net" in the host field, then something like mysql [0b] in the username, leave the password blank and upload silly things into the /pub in the directory. AdminHands is a decent SFTP app for cell phones. If that isn't an option they can mail them to me. If they are important and time sensitive then FedEx have door-to-door courier options.

Nowadays it is super simple to use GPG with email using Thunderbird, barely an inconvenience. [1] In my opinion everyone should set this up even if they do not plan to use it in the event something sensitive needs to be discussed and one does not trust platforms like Signal or WhatsApp which I do not. GPG is email provider agnostic. Mozilla are working on Thunderbird for phones. [2]

[0a] - https://winscp.net/

[0b] - https://ohblog.net/sftp_accounts_with_null_passwords.txt

[1] - https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-encrypt-email-in-thunde...

[2] - https://blog.thunderbird.net/2022/06/faq-thunderbird-mobile-...

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#86

Post by skah »

taoufix wrote: post #70
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.

I'm not into social media either. But unless you want to live like a hermit, you don't have much choice nowadays but to visit these sites from time to time. 1. I can't use anything else other than WhatsApp for messaging with families and friends. Thank God my kids' school still uses good-old email for communications. 2. Almost all the useful video tutorials/mini-documentaries/science-shorts are on Youtube and nowhere…

I am almost sure there are alternatives. I mean, there are still programmers who exclusively learn from books, writings, and documentations ... right?

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#87

Post by nologic01 »

josho wrote: post #64
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.

I think you are misreading the situation. It’s not enough to have open standards if the big guys just consume that data into their closed platforms. The author argues they are too powerful. We had open standards and big tech embraced and then locked it into their platforms. We need regulations at this point.

I agree its a bigger discussion. The fediverse is not a magic wand. Its a direction, not a destination. Lots of unresolved problems.

But those giant sclerotic organizations could assume some responsibility for the mess they have helped create by, in the first instance signalling they understand this.

Somebody mentioned in the thread they have a trial account on mastodon. Good, five years late but better than never.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#88

Post by robertlagrant »

josephcsible wrote: post #82
robertlagrant wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we can all think of potential futures. I don't see why this one is particularly likely. Google has open sourced the guts of its browser so others can make non-Google controlled browsers, and they fund one of the two only real competitors to their browser.

> you can't open the link with your non-chromium browser of choice - it's been built on tech provided by google, and google says: You can only use chrome to view this site. That part is particularly likely because that's literally what Web Environment Integrity does.

Can you speak plainly? I don't think that is literally what it is. That might be a side-effect, but I'd need to see some evidence of that being the case.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#89

Post by happytiger »

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.

So mainstream press finally starts covering the egregious behavior of big tech companies and the response is to attack them as complicit co-conspirators?

Might sound smart but perhaps not the wisest of criticism.

Let’s encourage dissent so we can preserve democracies.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#90

Post by josephcsible »

robertlagrant wrote: post #88
josephcsible wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can't open the link with your non-chromium browser of choice - it's been built on tech provided by google, and google says: You can only use chrome to view this site. That part is particularly likely because that's literally what Web Environment Integrity does.

Can you speak plainly? I don't think that is literally what it is. That might be a side-effect, but I'd need to see some evidence of that being the case.

WEI is a way to cryptographically prove to a remote website that you're really browsing it with an unmodified build of Chrome. Google hasn't said out loud yet that it's going to be used to block other browsers, but what else is there to use it for?
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