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Time to rebuild the web?

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Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#231

Post by erikb »

Hedja wrote: post #23

It feels like this is already a work in progress using Beaker Browser and Dat. - Beaker lets you browse entire websites (dat archives) and fork them. - It lets you create and serve your own sites directly from the browser and seed it from a server (like a torrent). - It lets other sites create templated sites under your name for user generated content. - Visitors by default temporarily seed your website which may red…

I like it. It's not clear to me though from skimming over the sites, whether beaker and dat are standards or pure tools. If they are standards and therefore people are able to do their own implementation, I believe it can be successful. However if it's just a tool without standardization efforts behind it, then it's still a centralized system.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#232

Post by erikb »

randomsearch wrote: post #105

I don't believe the problem lies in any technology. We don't need blockchain, it's not JavaScript minification, it isn't the centralisation of services that are the problem. It's the business model. No amount of tech is going to change that. If you want to change the situation, start social media businesses with a different business model.

People want to give away responsibility. That's imo the core problem. So even another business model will either fail (it's not like there aren't hundreds of other social networks out there) or will turn centralized as well.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#233

Post by alpos »

cslarson wrote: post #185
randomsearch wrote: post #105

I don't believe the problem lies in any technology. We don't need blockchain, it's not JavaScript minification, it isn't the centralisation of services that are the problem. It's the business model. No amount of tech is going to change that. If you want to change the situation, start social media businesses with a different business model.

Blockchain may be a tool to experiment with different business models.

Salon.com's new experiment is a great example. https://www.tweaktown.com/news/60862/salon-offers-users-cryp...

It's brilliant, most people probably won't care about the extra workload as long as it doesn't make their computer "slow down" or get too noisy and it realigns the content providers incentives from "collect more/better data and pack in as many ads as possible" to just "keep people on the site as long as possible". The cost is also just the price of electricity which, while not totally trivial, is cheap enough for this to work and something people are already paying for.

I found it intriguing enough that I actually let them have a go at it rather than disabling Javascript (my usual response to ad-blocker-blockers). So far it works "as advertised", the only way I notice is through the system monitoring I have on my desktop.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#234

Post by Tannic »

snarf21 wrote: post #119
randomsearch wrote: post #105

I don't believe the problem lies in any technology. We don't need blockchain, it's not JavaScript minification, it isn't the centralisation of services that are the problem. It's the business model. No amount of tech is going to change that. If you want to change the situation, start social media businesses with a different business model.

Agreed 1000%. Everyone wants unlimited high quality content that is also free but no ads and conditional privacy and "true" information and ... and ... and ...

We as a society actually have the means to provide that, strictly speaking. It is, in the end, the original aspiration of the internet to provide these things in the name of bettering humanity. The problem is that having the tech doesn’t change the antequated and oppresive socio-political and economic system in which we currently bathe. Without a more forceful revolution—of whatever type—the promise of the internet revolution will be perpetually subsumed by the underlying impossibility of the systems it requires to flourish. Go figure, free flow of information requires all sorts of other human freedoms.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#235

Post by peterwwillis »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #164
peterwwillis wrote: post #158

I just came back from China. I could not message my loved ones, check my mail, update my social media, or listen to internet radio. This was not Facebook's fault, it was not even China's fault (though they were the ones blocking me). It was the fault of the way we use existing technology. So Facebook is banned. Fine. That shouldn't stop me from being able to at least send data somewhere that will end up at Facebook.…

This was not Facebook's fault, it was not even China's fault Absolute shite. It's 100% China's fault. Given the widespread, damaging, lingering ramifications of the lack of security on the Internet in general, the absolute last thing we should be doing is promoting the idea that this information and these connections should be less secure. I am baffled that anybody could even propose this idea.

Well, I propose it because 1) HTTPS is a tiny aspect of what makes one secure on the web, 2) I just want to talk to my loved ones on the web, 3) I don't care what China does with my data, 4) "lingering ramifications" of this are very manageable.

Maybe I have a skewed point of view, but after being involved in computer security for 15 years, I literally have two cases at all where I care about the data I'm sending over the internet: logging into my bank, and making a purchase with a credit card. Virtually everything else, I don't care about.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#236

Post by kristianc »

typingduck wrote: post #222
vlehto wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU is about to enforce GDPR. Net neutrality seems to be American problem, while rest of the world is moving to the opposite direction. Which economy has better prospects in the long run? Currently internet is very U.S. centric because most of the big players are located there. That could change if European legislation is more supportive for small agile companies to evolve.

As a EU citizen after watching all of Zuckerberg talking to Congress I was really amazed. I do not think any country in Europe would have such open discussions. Most articles I've seen have unfortunately picked soundbites to make a point, or claimed the Representatives were not tech-savvy. But for me it was really great democracy in action. if European legislation is more supportive for small agile companies to evolv…

> As a EU citizen after watching all of Zuckerberg talking to Congress I was really amazed. I do not think any country in Europe would have such open discussions.

No need to get infected by American exceptionalism. The UK Parliament Select Committee asked Zuckerberg in for questioning over this, and he would have received a comparable grilling. Zuck refused to go.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#237

Post by fragmede »

snarf21 wrote: post #119
randomsearch wrote: post #105

I don't believe the problem lies in any technology. We don't need blockchain, it's not JavaScript minification, it isn't the centralisation of services that are the problem. It's the business model. No amount of tech is going to change that. If you want to change the situation, start social media businesses with a different business model.

Agreed 1000%. Everyone wants unlimited high quality content that is also free but no ads and conditional privacy and "true" information and ... and ... and ...

The ongoing success of Netflix proves not everybody is a freeloader, and a report from Spotify made the news for their estimate that 2 million people are using ad-block software to get premium without paying for it - the bigger news should really be that they have 150-some million users that aren't cheating the system, and that 70 million people pay money to Spotify.

Everybody wants something for free, but there are some people that recognize things are worth paying for.

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#238

Post by mbaha »

“Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves,” the New York Times editorialized in October 1963, as demolition of the old Penn Station began.

I suggest a corollary:

"Any web community gets what it admires (fancy UX and feeds that work like magic), will pay for (=nothing), and, ultimately, deserves."

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#239

Post by loceng »

staticvar wrote: post #73
Hedja wrote: post #23

It feels like this is already a work in progress using Beaker Browser and Dat. - Beaker lets you browse entire websites (dat archives) and fork them. - It lets you create and serve your own sites directly from the browser and seed it from a server (like a torrent). - It lets other sites create templated sites under your name for user generated content. - Visitors by default temporarily seed your website which may red…

I'd like to also add that not only does Dat / Beaker / Bunsen offer a great way to decentralize the Web for existing users, it also makes it more affordable for billions of other people to browse and host websites because you can sync websites P2P over offline wifi. The use of cryptography under the hood guarantees users don't get hit by man-in-the-middle attacks. It's like SSL for offline. *Disclaimer: I am a volunt…

In Bunsen Browser and others, while browsing offline, are you aware if there is a feature that allows version control tracking, so willing websites can have an API call that shares latest version - to return to say if an update is "required" or available?

Re: Time to rebuild the web?

#240

Post by icebraining »

peterwwillis wrote: post #158

I just came back from China. I could not message my loved ones, check my mail, update my social media, or listen to internet radio. This was not Facebook's fault, it was not even China's fault (though they were the ones blocking me). It was the fault of the way we use existing technology. So Facebook is banned. Fine. That shouldn't stop me from being able to at least send data somewhere that will end up at Facebook.…

If the interesting things ran over email, China would start blocking those too. Who cares where the intermediary server is, if the email headers contain the final destination?

Plus, they would probably block any direct access to intermediary servers outside the country.

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