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The open web isn't dying, we're killing it

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Re: The open web isn't dying, we're killing it

#21

Post by 152334H »

kunai wrote: post #9

I do find it quite ironic that this piece reeks of LLM-writing while also simultaneously decrying the death of everything that is in antithesis to things like that. Is there a single shred of originality or shame left in the SV-adjacent writing sphere?

Best to treat it with some emotional distance. It's not like the optimization process feels it.

Whether be it human dullards, scripted botfarms, or even maleficence -- none of them experience shame. If they do see it at all, it would be as one of many factors to boost engagement.

Re: The open web isn't dying, we're killing it

#22

Post by gausswho »

alephnerd wrote: post #18
pdonis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I'm done writing this comment, I'll probably go back to doomscrolling on walled-garden social media for a while. I won't. I don't do social media. I have a Facebook account but I never use it. I don't even have a Twitter account. I don't use TikTok or any other such apps. If I'm using my smartphone and it's not for a call, texting, or an essential app like my bank's, it means I'm reading an e-book on it. (It's…

> I don't do social media You do realize Hacker News is social media right? And that too owned and operated by YCombinator. And unscrupulous data crawlers have been mining HN's datasets for years. Heck, there's a fairly robust live HN dataset on Hugging Face right now [0]. OP is right. [0] - https://huggingface.co/datasets/open-index/hacker-news

How many times must we trundle underfoot this lazy canard that HN is social media. A link aggregator with comments is not what anyone thinks of for that term.

Re: The open web isn't dying, we're killing it

#23

Post by nine_k »

raincole wrote: post #7

The idea of open web only works when only a small portion of the population access the internet. Feel prophetic in regards to the fate of democracy.

No, the analogy does not hold. All free male citizens of Athens participated in Athenean democracy of ancient times, which achieved serious successes. All citizens of Switzerland participate in the direct democracy, and Switzerland is in a pretty good shape.

The "small web" is a different phenomenon. When accessing the Web was cumbersome and unglamorous, that served as a filter for motivated and skillful people. Those who care, those who are inclined to create so strongly that they would overcome all these hurdles for it. Similar dynamics exist among open source software contributors.

Once the internet became a zero-effort communication channel, it started to attract people who just want some quick dopamine fix, but who have a lot of other, more important things to mind. That is, the majority, the regular people. These are not bad people! They just don't focus on the internet, or art, or whimsical texts and projects.

This is just literally normal, in the statistical sense. There's an old saying about not blaming a mirror for the image it shows.

Re: The open web isn't dying, we're killing it

#24

Post by tacitusarc »

alephnerd wrote: post #18
pdonis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I'm done writing this comment, I'll probably go back to doomscrolling on walled-garden social media for a while. I won't. I don't do social media. I have a Facebook account but I never use it. I don't even have a Twitter account. I don't use TikTok or any other such apps. If I'm using my smartphone and it's not for a call, texting, or an essential app like my bank's, it means I'm reading an e-book on it. (It's…

> I don't do social media You do realize Hacker News is social media right? And that too owned and operated by YCombinator. And unscrupulous data crawlers have been mining HN's datasets for years. Heck, there's a fairly robust live HN dataset on Hugging Face right now [0]. OP is right. [0] - https://huggingface.co/datasets/open-index/hacker-news

I don’t believe Hacker News is social media, it’s news aggregator/message board.

Social media requires social network effects, where a large part of the draw is the network effect, and that just isn’t a part of HN.

Re: The open web isn't dying, we're killing it

#25

Post by jacquesm »

echelon wrote: post #19
bruce511 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I'm not sure I even understand what the term "Open web" is supposed to mean? Does it mean that each individual and company is hosting their stuff on their own physical hardware? Is it OK to use say AWS? Does it mean that Facebook is the Open Web as long as you work at Facebook? But it's not if you don't? Is any site with a login "not the open web"? So if I'm hosting on my own metal, paid for by paying s…

A world where hyperscalers don't dictate the technology choices of 99.99% of people and totally control distribution. A world where platform taxes and gatekeeping don't stifle innovation or put a ceiling on startups. A world where the balance of power is more evenly distributed. A world where single giant point of failures can't dictate the security posture and privacy of the entire civilization. The brief period of…

The no monoculture one is the big one for me. And I think 2008 is very generous.

Re: The open web isn't dying, we're killing it

#26

Post by alex1138 »

alephnerd wrote: post #18
pdonis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I'm done writing this comment, I'll probably go back to doomscrolling on walled-garden social media for a while. I won't. I don't do social media. I have a Facebook account but I never use it. I don't even have a Twitter account. I don't use TikTok or any other such apps. If I'm using my smartphone and it's not for a call, texting, or an essential app like my bank's, it means I'm reading an e-book on it. (It's…

> I don't do social media You do realize Hacker News is social media right? And that too owned and operated by YCombinator. And unscrupulous data crawlers have been mining HN's datasets for years. Heck, there's a fairly robust live HN dataset on Hugging Face right now [0]. OP is right. [0] - https://huggingface.co/datasets/open-index/hacker-news

There's a massive whitewashing of what "social media" is. I don't feel there's one singular definition but I could be wrong, maybe I am the one who missed the boat. But I'd really love to see it quantified more

eg "Social media leads to addiction!" - ok take Facebook

Are you referring to

a) non-chronological feeds? Who knows what posts you'll actually find? You come back for more. You can't just log off for a week and come back and the most recent posts are there (you don't even see everything, the platforms regularly hides stuff). That's certainly addiction

b) fake notifications? That's fraud, and certainly addiction

c) the corollary of a), you don't know who's seen your posts so your mental model gets shaped. That's certainly addiction

d) forced Messenger and read receipts can be addiction especially given bullshit like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4151433 so FB wants to subvert email

I'm fine with people railing against all this. I just want people to quantify it more

Re: The open web isn't dying, we're killing it

#27

Post by jacquesm »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #11

When @home first started figuring out how to IP-over-cable in the mid-90s, one of its early employees was incredibly excited that the promise was to offer symmetric up/down bandwidth, with the implicit goal that people could run servers at home. The entire industry, from IP providers to software developers, dropped this as a goal very early on. Bandwidth wasn't available, server installation and management was too co…

I see no reason why we could not bend it back that way. I have some friends that run a mid sized ISP that somehow managed to stay independent, they run fiber to the home and have a large enough customer base that it might be interesting to see if they're open to removing any blocks on symmetrical links for qualified users.

I suspect the first time one of the home IP servers is hit with a large enough denial of service attack the whole thing will be reverted but it is a neat idea, and maybe with some tweaks it could be made to work.

Re: The open web isn't dying, we're killing it

#28

Post by pdonis »

alephnerd wrote: post #18
pdonis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I'm done writing this comment, I'll probably go back to doomscrolling on walled-garden social media for a while. I won't. I don't do social media. I have a Facebook account but I never use it. I don't even have a Twitter account. I don't use TikTok or any other such apps. If I'm using my smartphone and it's not for a call, texting, or an essential app like my bank's, it means I'm reading an e-book on it. (It's…

> I don't do social media You do realize Hacker News is social media right? And that too owned and operated by YCombinator. And unscrupulous data crawlers have been mining HN's datasets for years. Heck, there's a fairly robust live HN dataset on Hugging Face right now [0]. OP is right. [0] - https://huggingface.co/datasets/open-index/hacker-news

> You do realize Hacker News is social media right?

No, I don't. HN is a news and discussion site. It's not trying to monetize my data.

> unscrupulous data crawlers have been mining HN's datasets for years

They've been mining every byte of data that's visible on the web for years. That doesn't make every single website on the Internet social media.

Re: The open web isn't dying, we're killing it

#29

Post by jacquesm »

yalogin wrote: post #3

Why use the present continuous tense? We can safely use the past tense as llms definitely killed it. The web of course isn’t going to vanish but there is no motivation for anyone to create a new site now.

I am happy to ignore the scrapers (I block them wholesale) and will probably move to something even more drastic in the near future.

Re: The open web isn't dying, we're killing it

#30

Post by jacquesm »

nine_k wrote: post #23
raincole wrote: post #7

The idea of open web only works when only a small portion of the population access the internet. Feel prophetic in regards to the fate of democracy.

No, the analogy does not hold. All free male citizens of Athens participated in Athenean democracy of ancient times, which achieved serious successes. All citizens of Switzerland participate in the direct democracy, and Switzerland is in a pretty good shape. The "small web" is a different phenomenon. When accessing the Web was cumbersome and unglamorous, that served as a filter for motivated and skillful people. Thos…

This is precisely the mechanism behind the 'eternal September'. And as such outlets dry up HN is attracting more and more of the overflow and will eventually go that way as well.
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