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Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

den.dev

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

#91

Post by dehrmann »

dend wrote: post #89
dehrmann wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> used/exploited by things like AI training bots How is this worse than a human reading your blog/code, remembering the key parts of it, and creating something transformative from it?

In the grand scheme of things and at this point, it probably doesn't matter. I know for me it certainly is not in any shape a discouragement to continue writing on my blog and contributing code to open source communities (my own and others). But if we're going to dig into this a bit, one person reading my code, internalizing it, processing it themselves, tweaking it and experimenting with it, and then shipping someth…

> The opposite of that is some massively funded company taking my content, training a model off of it, and then reaping profits while the authors don't even get as much as an acknowledgement.

Taking out the "training a model" part, the same thing could happen with a human at the company.

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

#92

Post by dend »

paxys wrote: post #80
richardw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It offers significantly more flexibility and freedom compared to any social network. If your data is "hijacked" (not sure that that means in this context, but let's assume the host terminated your account), you can spin up another hosting account on one of the many hosting providers and point your domain to it. That's it (not to say that it's that trivial for large sites, but that's the gist of it).

If your account on a major social network is terminated, if you had a large community there, you have quite literally no way to access them unless you had some kind of parallel presence somewhere else.

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

#93

Post by dend »

dehrmann wrote: post #91
dend wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the grand scheme of things and at this point, it probably doesn't matter. I know for me it certainly is not in any shape a discouragement to continue writing on my blog and contributing code to open source communities (my own and others). But if we're going to dig into this a bit, one person reading my code, internalizing it, processing it themselves, tweaking it and experimenting with it, and then shipping someth…

> The opposite of that is some massively funded company taking my content, training a model off of it, and then reaping profits while the authors don't even get as much as an acknowledgement. Taking out the "training a model" part, the same thing could happen with a human at the company.

Oh, 100%. I mentioned this in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42582518) - I've dealt with a fair share of stolen content (thankfully nothing too important, just a random blog post here and there), and it definitely stings. The difference is that this is now done at a massive scale.

But again - this doesn't stop me from continuing to write and publish in the open. I am writing for other people reading my content, and as a bouncing board for myself. There will always be some shape or form of actors that try to piggyback off of that effort, but that's the trade-off of the open web. I am certainly not planning to lock all my writing behind a paywall to stop that.

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

#94

Post by ehnto »

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 have decided not to put text online if I feel it has IP or personal ideas in it. Some exceptions, like posting here, and including stuff I want to get out there for commercial reasons eg: marketing of services. The one I struggle with is discord, but I am not too personal on discord servers so I suppose I'll just mesh into the soup of barely worthwhile chatter.

I also started self hosting my git repos and knowledge base, both were trivial to set up.

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

#95

Post by sifar »

dehrmann wrote: post #82
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…

> used/exploited by things like AI training bots How is this worse than a human reading your blog/code, remembering the key parts of it, and creating something transformative from it?

Scale.

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

#97

Post by moron4hire »

scarface_74 wrote: post #63
drewcoo wrote: post #60

This used to be a forum for startup-folk, not wanna-be-FAANG-employees. There's a lot of sense in this post. There's not a lot of sense in the reaction here.

What do you think the goal of “startup folks” were if not to get acquired by FAANG or other BigTech adjacent companies? Out of the literally thousands of companies that YC has invested in, only about a dozen have gone public. YC is not interested in “lifestyle companies” that are a profitable ongoing concern it is interested in the “exit”

Yeah, no, that's definitely not the story YC sells though.

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

#98

Post by immibis »

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…

For images, there's Nightshade, which imperceptibly alters your images but makes them poison for AI (does anyone understand why?)

I don't know if there's something similar for text. You could try writing nonsense with a color that doesn't contrast with the background.

The evidence Nightshade works is that AI companies want to make it illegal.

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

#99

Post by immibis »

chii wrote: post #51
dend wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing to disagree in this statement, for sure. If it's on the open internet, it will almost surely be used for AI training, consent be damned. But it feels like even at a rudimentary level, if I post a picture on my site that is then used by a large publisher for ads, I would (at least in theory) have some recourse to pursue the matter and prevent them from using my content. In contrast, if I uploaded something to…

> Meta "sublicensed" my image to someone else, I wouldn't have much to say there. but you agreed to this, when agreeing to the TOS. > I post a picture on my site that is then used by a large publisher for ads, I would (at least in theory) have some recourse which you didn't sign any contract, and therefore it is a violation of copyright. But the new AI training methods are currently, at least imho, not a violation of…

> but you agreed to this

Yes, that was the point? You agree to this by using Meta. So don't.

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

#100

Post by NitpickLawyer »

panarky wrote: post #48
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…

> how to segment communities locally So it's not about owning vs. renting property on the internet, it's about controlling the roads that connect the properties so you can keep the world out of your community.

Ha, I have the same feeling on the recent good_social_network vs. bad_social_network debate that kinda goes on in the US. Looking from outside, it always felt that the main problem is control, and wanting more of it. The details, principles and "politics" don't matter in the grand scheme of things, it's control that people want, even tho they paint it differently.

bad_social_network was good 10 years ago, because it was controlled by "a friend of ours". Now it's controlled by someone who's perceived as "a friend of theirs" and it's therefore bad. So the politik aktivists move to good_social_network, and rave about the good there. Echo chambers be damned, we have control. Until the next "friend of theirs" buys it out, and rinse and repeat. So silly.

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