Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

den.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 270 posts

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#71

Post by matheusmoreira »

bulatb wrote: post #66
matheusmoreira wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can absolutely see why someone rational would want to share a whole lot less, anywhere, in an open fashion, regardless of where it's hosted. I've reached the same conclusion. All data is just bits. Numbers. Once it's out there, trying to control their spread and use is just delusional. People should just stop sharing things publicly. Even things like AGPLv3 are proving to be ineffective against their exploitation…

Yeah, I hear this. Anything I put online is feeding the machine that will replace me. Maybe I can carve myself a niche if I can find an audience, and maybe turn that into something kind of reward-shaped, but that's not happening without me feeding the machine. And almost certainly I won't succeed, and I'll just make it harder for myself and everyone like me to succeed in the future. It seems the only thing to do is d…

Yeah, I'm trying too. Specifically, the GitHub Sponsors thing.

I'm opposed to advertising and don't want to inflict it on others. So I don't generally advertise my work on sites like this one, I just participate in threads about it whenever I see them.

Somehow people found my projects and posted them here. Just woke up one day and saw I had one sponsor. Not gonna lie, I'm still amazed about it. Not even close to providing for my family despite an incredibly favorable exchange rate, so I can't work full time on my projects. It's still the only thing that gives me hope right now. Really thankful to that person.

> And somehow just be fine with pulling up the ladder behind you.

Do you really think it will come to that? I mean, this AI situation has got to come to a head at some point. We can't have these corporations defending copyright and simultaneously pretending it doesn't exist while exploiting software developers. One of those things has got to go away.

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#72

Post by econ »

We shouldn't complaint as it is all our fault. (haha)

I think OPML is the technology. Go build one and share it. Writing or recording your own stuff is a lot of work. Help promote all the cool things you've found outside the walled garden of plastic plants.

Build a website for someone, teach them html for 20 minutes and set up a domain, hosting and an ftp client for them. They can always call you if they get stuck.

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#73

Post by dend »

liontwist wrote: post #70
CamperBob2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, if I've noticed anything in the past couple years, it's that even if you self-host your own site, it's still going to get hoovered up and used/exploited by things like AI training bots. So? What do I care? If some stuff I posted to my website (with no requirement for attribution or remuneration, and also no guarantee that the information is true or valid) can improve the AI services that I use, great.

Even if no attribution etc is your personal policy that’s not everyone else’s. The end result is that any authors who care about copyright protection will become less accessible. It’s a gold rush for AI bots to capture the good will of early internet creators before the well runs dry,

+1

My content is still MY content, and I'd prefer that if an entity is going to make money off of it directly (i.e., it's not a person learning how to code from something I wrote but rather a well-funded company pulling my content for their gain), that I at least have some semblance of consent to it.

That being said, I think there is no longer a point of crying over spilled milk. The LLM technology is out of the bag, and for every company that attempts to ethically manage content (are there any?) there will be ten that will disregard any kind of license/copyright notices and pull that content to train their models anyway.

I write because I want to be a better writer, and I enjoy sharing my knowledge with others. That's the motivation. If it helps at least one person, that's a win in my book, especially in the modern internet where there's so much junk scattered around.

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#74

Post by bulatb »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #57
rpcope1 wrote: post #44

> Exploiting user-generated content. You know, if I've noticed anything in the past couple years, it's that even if you self-host your own site, it's still going to get hoovered up and used/exploited by things like AI training bots. I think between everyone's code getting trained on, even if it's AGPLv3 or something similarly restrictive, and generally everything public on the internet getting "trained" and "transfor…

You know, if I've noticed anything in the past couple years, it's that even if you self-host your own site, it's still going to get hoovered up and used/exploited by things like AI training bots. So? What do I care? If some stuff I posted to my website (with no requirement for attribution or remuneration, and also no guarantee that the information is true or valid) can improve the AI services that I use, great.

Wouldn't you feel just a little bad if you worked really hard on something, gave it out for free in the spirit of sharing, and someone came along and said thanks, loser, and sold it for money? Would you want to go on making it for free for them to sell?

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#75

Post by liontwist »

BSOhealth wrote: post #16

I have vr.dev and want to do something meaningful with it, additive to the community, and not just a trash content blog. any ideas? who’s down?

Your question is kind of backwards, as an interesting website idea is more of a project than a good domain name. But here goes:

Document every VR headset released with technical details and references

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#76

Post by dend »

econ wrote: post #72

We shouldn't complaint as it is all our fault. (haha) I think OPML is the technology. Go build one and share it. Writing or recording your own stuff is a lot of work. Help promote all the cool things you've found outside the walled garden of plastic plants. Build a website for someone, teach them html for 20 minutes and set up a domain, hosting and an ftp client for them. They can always call you if they get stuck.

That's the strategy I have with this blog. Instead of sitting and lamenting over the state of the internet, it's better to spread the word and encourage action. There are actual things we can do to reclaim parts of the web that died down. It doesn't need to be at the same scale as all the social networks out there, but even if it serves a small niche, that's a fantastic achievement.

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#78

Post by alisonatwork »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #59
rpcope1 wrote: post #44

> Exploiting user-generated content. You know, if I've noticed anything in the past couple years, it's that even if you self-host your own site, it's still going to get hoovered up and used/exploited by things like AI training bots. I think between everyone's code getting trained on, even if it's AGPLv3 or something similarly restrictive, and generally everything public on the internet getting "trained" and "transfor…

> I can absolutely see why someone rational would want to share a whole lot less, anywhere, in an open fashion, regardless of where it's hosted. I've reached the same conclusion. All data is just bits. Numbers. Once it's out there, trying to control their spread and use is just delusional. People should just stop sharing things publicly. Even things like AGPLv3 are proving to be ineffective against their exploitation…

Who cares? Information wants to be free. You put your stuff out there for free, it's hoovered up and sold back to you by capitalists, that sucks, but you've still made a real contribution to society. Meanwhile a select few will still find your stuff directly. Maybe what you shared will make just one person's life a little bit better, and that was your impact - you made a difference! Capitalists will never have that feeling, because anyone consuming their repackaged content is paying for the privilege - any benefit to society is just an incidental side-effect of their greed. Sucks to be them.

The way I see it, this is exactly what life is about. Do you want to make a positive impact in society? Then share your knowledge, your experiences, your creations. People will try to capitalize on your work, and they might even get rich from it, but oh well. It doesn't take away from your own contribution to the ongoing story of humanity.

I don't have or want kids, but I see my existence in society and free contributions to the "collective consciousness", such as it is, as my legacy. For me that's comforting. I'm choosing to be part of something bigger. If I just disappeared from society and lived like a hermit, or if I buried myself completely in my day job working for capitalists and not producing anything outside of that, I think I'd lose my sense of meaning.

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#79

Post by spiritplumber »

Terr_ wrote: post #67
rpcope1 wrote: post #44

> Exploiting user-generated content. You know, if I've noticed anything in the past couple years, it's that even if you self-host your own site, it's still going to get hoovered up and used/exploited by things like AI training bots. I think between everyone's code getting trained on, even if it's AGPLv3 or something similarly restrictive, and generally everything public on the internet getting "trained" and "transfor…

IANAL, but lately I've had this quixotic daydream of a combination accept-cookies / agree-to-TOS page that comes up, and the Terms of Service says by proceeding they agree to give the site-owner an perpetual, irrevocable, and royalty-free to use and re-license any future content that they create using any generative AI that was trained using the website contents. Then you carefully log what LLM user-agents/IPs go pas…

I love this, I did something like that with made-up-italian-sounding words a while ago (you used to be able to find my site if you looked for FANTACHIAVE).

It's a bit like fake roads on map databases)

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#80

Post by paxys »

richardw wrote: post #45
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #17

This all sounds like renting to me. Instead you should: - put a rack in your home - buy an IPv4 block - buy dark fibre - start your own ISP - advertise routes over BGP - host your own email - found a registrar and transfer your domains over All easily obtainable for less than a million dollars in capital. Though once your FTTH and undersea cable operations ramp up you'll need further access to capital.

The second you have a domain you can move it where you want. Change the software, look and feel. You keep subscribers. You don’t need to own every atom, just enough to give you options. You can’t move your X or FB account. They can block you anytime, or reduce traffic. Way fewer options.

Having control over a domain name doesn't mean all that much when the data hosted on it can be hijacked or held hostage at any point.
Post reply on HN