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A website to destroy all websites

henry.codes

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Re: A website to destroy all websites

#171

Post by cgriswald »

IvanK_net wrote: post #112
cgriswald wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original poster said “more useful”, not “better”, so you’re already arguing something different than what was said. I might spend more time with something less useful because its time efficiency is one of the things that makes it less useful now. Regarding your argument of “better” you seem to be arguing by definition. Edit: I now realize you are the original poster who said “more useful”, so why did you change i…

More useful is one of many ways of being better. What are you talking about?

If you’re arguing that there are different ways of being better than your argument falls even further apart since you might choose a worse option because it is better in some way…

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#172

Post by moshun »

micimize wrote: post #169

The title is all bluster. Nothing wrong with going off to play in your own corner but I don't think it does this movement any good to play-act at some grand conflict. Personally, I believe it would be better if we had more technological self-direction and sovereignty, but this kind of essay, which downplays and denigrates the progress and value of our modern systems, is a perspective from which the insights necessary…

Agree with a lot that you’re saying here but with a rather large asterisk (*). I think that ecosystems like YT are useless to the wider web and collective tech stack unless those innovations become open (which Alphabet has a vested interest in preventing).

If YT shut down tomorrow morning, we’d see in a heartbeat why considering them a net benefit in their current form is folly. It is inherently transitory if one group controls it.

The OP article is correct about the problem, but is proposing throwing mugs of coffee on a forest fire.

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#173

Post by yunnpp »

wsatb wrote: post #114
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> It has become political (toward the left) I don’t feel this way at all. Maybe it’s one of the only places you’re actually consuming mixed opinions.

I will even go as far as stating that it is one of the only few places left on the Internet where you can see differing opinions interleave in a not-completely destructive manner. Really no idea what OP is talking about because it has not been at all my experience.

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#174

Post by arjie »

GaryBluto wrote: post #166
arjie wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that social networks are not meant to be moderated at scale. We are meant to have what I call 'overlay networks': we occupy the same infrastructure but see content filtered to the style that befits us. Most social networks have the notion of friend symmetry, but I think that read-time filtering needn't be like that. To that end, I made a trivial Chrome extension and an equivalent CRUD backend that just helps…

I designed an extension with a roughly similar aim that filters based upon various phrases and characteristics rather than the poster of the comments themselves. It collapses comments (via automatic triggering of HN's built-in collapsing feature) and adds a "reason" tag to the comment information, so I can choose whether or not to read it anyways. I feel the features with the most positive differences are the capital…

That is very cool. It would be cool to see what you decided to filter on (other than the same-case filter and the char limit). I had a similar idea where I would run comments through a fast cheap LLM to evaluate whether they could be tagged in a certain way. I originally tried just pure word-stemming and phrase-based blocking and found that I couldn't tune it well for my uses. I also found that collapsing comments lead to my opening them out of curiosity.

Thank you for sharing what works for you. I think it's great other people have been doing this style of read-side filtering. It's a pity that there's no way to inject code into mobile apps safely (i.e. this is an easy path to app-store rejection). Perhaps there's no option there but to push `shouldFilter` out to a server where you can run the logic. My use of my phone is the weakest link in my filtering strategy.

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#175

Post by trinsic2 »

tkiolp4 wrote: post #45
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

HN is so depressing, but at the same time so Im addicted to it. It’s like tiktok but for people who enjoy plain text and hacking related stuff. When I first visited HN more than 10 years ago (without account) like, 90% of the content was exciting and you got to learn something. Nowadays it’s about 40-50%, and the rest is crap (including comments). I have been trying to leave HN, let’s see if I can do it in 2026.

Its alright, were not all like that. I found the site cute, at least there are people standing up to the bullshit. I have been blogging about it on my site to https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#176

Post by yakattak »

nativeit wrote: post #78
yakattak wrote: post #36

These are some ways I’ve been using the web in a way that keeps me free. - Run my own site (not much there yet) - Use RSS Feeds instead of Reddit - If a YouTube creator you like has a newsletter, SIGN UP! - If a short form content creator makes long form content, watch that instead - Post on forums, instead of their subreddit/Discord (lots of Linux distros have all three) - Invest in my cozy web communities[1] Speaki…

I'm quite enthusiastic about my FreshRSS instance. I got to this article/these comments from there, and I've even worked out how to add YouTube subscription feeds, and comics. Just a straightforward, chronological list of the things I've chosen to follow--no ads, no BS. It's quite refreshing, I think it's had a material impact to improve my mental health. Of course, the things that the people I follow create, and the…

Yeah I've been using RSS to keep track of new mods for Cyberpunk 2077, Skyrim and Starfield. It's been fantastic to keep them all organized.

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#177

Post by krapp »

gmd63 wrote: post #136
krapp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Constantly? As if it were a psychological compulsion? So often that dang had to make a guideline about it, which no one even attempts to follow? Two actually - the guideline against being "curmudgeonly" is separate from the guideline against going on a tilt because you get triggered by any website that doesn't look and act as much like plaintext as possible. And yet if someone so much as cracks a joke they get rapped…

You've convinced me, I'm going to stop complaining about corporate slop and the connection between big tech / VCs and the awful political situation in the most advanced country in the world. I will try to glaze Liquid Glass from here on out, say some nice things about the richest man on earth who kept quiet about the fact that he pays people to grind video games for him, and make sure to give David Sacks and Jason Ca…

The compulsion to interpret people's comments in bad faith then retort with condescending snark is a problem too.

But hey, at least it isn't memes, right?

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#178

Post by micimize »

moshun wrote: post #172
micimize wrote: post #169

The title is all bluster. Nothing wrong with going off to play in your own corner but I don't think it does this movement any good to play-act at some grand conflict. Personally, I believe it would be better if we had more technological self-direction and sovereignty, but this kind of essay, which downplays and denigrates the progress and value of our modern systems, is a perspective from which the insights necessary…

Agree with a lot that you’re saying here but with a rather large asterisk (*). I think that ecosystems like YT are useless to the wider web and collective tech stack unless those innovations become open (which Alphabet has a vested interest in preventing). If YT shut down tomorrow morning, we’d see in a heartbeat why considering them a net benefit in their current form is folly. It is inherently transitory if one gro…

Mmm yeah I think I know what you mean. IDK if "If they stopped existing, we'd realize we shouldn't have relied on their existence" is plausible, but we have plenty of bitter lessons in centralized comms being acquired and reworked towards... particular ends, and will see more.

Also the collective capability of our IT is inhibited in some ways by the silo-ing of particular content and domain knowledge+tech, no question

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#179

Post by garganzol »

To give it a different light: by using an indie web approach (i.e. self host), there is an intrinsic guarantee that a publisher has put at least some effort and resources to make their materials public.

This ensures that the published materials have certain authenticity and inherent amount of quality. Publishing them "the indie way" functions as a kind of proof of work: not a guarantee of excellence, but evidence that something meaningful was at stake in producing and sharing it.

By contrast, the corporate web has driven the cost of publishing effectively to 0. This single fact opens the floodgates to noise, spam, and irrelevance at an unprecedented scale.

The core problem is that the average consumer cannot easily distinguish between these two fundamentally different universes. Loud, low-effort content often masquerades as significance, while quiet, honest, and carefully produced work is overlooked. As a result, authenticity is drowned out by volume, and signal is mistaken for noise.

To sum it up: this is not so much a problem of the internet as a lack of discernment among its users.

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#180

Post by twitchisntgood »

moshun wrote: post #172
micimize wrote: post #169

The title is all bluster. Nothing wrong with going off to play in your own corner but I don't think it does this movement any good to play-act at some grand conflict. Personally, I believe it would be better if we had more technological self-direction and sovereignty, but this kind of essay, which downplays and denigrates the progress and value of our modern systems, is a perspective from which the insights necessary…

Agree with a lot that you’re saying here but with a rather large asterisk (*). I think that ecosystems like YT are useless to the wider web and collective tech stack unless those innovations become open (which Alphabet has a vested interest in preventing). If YT shut down tomorrow morning, we’d see in a heartbeat why considering them a net benefit in their current form is folly. It is inherently transitory if one gro…

This conversation on YT reminds me intimately of all the competition Twitch got over time. By all accounts, Mixer was more technologically advanced than Twitch is right now, and Mixer died 5 years ago.

Even Valve of all people made a streaming apparatus that was more advanced than Twitch's which had then innovative features such letting you rewind with visible categories and automated replays of moments of heightened chat activity, and even synchronized metadata such as in-game stats - and they did it as a side thing for CSGO and Dota 2. That got reworked in the streaming framework Steam has now which is only really used by Remote play and annoying publisher streams above games, so basically nothing came of it.

That's how it always goes. Twitch lags and adds useless fake engagement fluff like bits and thrives, while competitors try their damnest and neither find any success nor do they have a positive impact anywhere. The one sitting at the throne gets to pick what tech stack improvements are done, and if they don't feel like it, well, though luck, rough love.

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