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“Facebook has destroyed the open web”

ibtimes.co.uk

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Re: “Facebook has destroyed the open web”

#41

Post by tpeo »

bawana wrote: post #33

And I remember the net before the web. FTP, Gopher, and lynx. So why did a 'web browser' succeed? Because you could integrate bandwidth hogging graphics?? or was it to mimic the gui interfaces of mac OS, windows, BEos, etc? I still mourn the loss of the newsgroups and usenet. Well, Usenet is still around, but in name only. So what's next-VR interfaces? The web and FB has made us dumber- we point and click and no long…

I'm young enough that I've never had to use any of these, except for FTP. But the contemporary needlessly bloated and avertising-centered web does make me nostalgic for things I didn't experience. It even makes browsing through Html-only sites feels refreshing.

Re: “Facebook has destroyed the open web”

#42

Post by tawpKek »

bawana wrote: post #33

And I remember the net before the web. FTP, Gopher, and lynx. So why did a 'web browser' succeed? Because you could integrate bandwidth hogging graphics?? or was it to mimic the gui interfaces of mac OS, windows, BEos, etc? I still mourn the loss of the newsgroups and usenet. Well, Usenet is still around, but in name only. So what's next-VR interfaces? The web and FB has made us dumber- we point and click and no long…

>The web and FB has made us dumber- we point and click and no longer have to search and think.

That is a bold and baseless statement.

Re: “Facebook has destroyed the open web”

#43

Post by chris_wot »

Razengan wrote: post #34
drivingmenuts wrote: post #12

Facebook hasn't destroyed the web - it's still there and functioning fine. Hyperlinks still work. What FB has done is made it easier for the lazy to connect with and stay within their own interest groups. FB has made it easy for people to ignore negative information with tons of cat pictures (I am as guilty as anyone for that) and cheerful little meaningless quotes. It's made it easier to post misinformation and spre…

> The internet (or more specifically, information) was going to get harder to find and navigate anyway, once you turn it loose on a few billion people. That sheds light on a much scarier issue: Google.com has effectively BECOME the internet. How do you find information that isn't indexed by Google? There has to be a better way than just word of mouth, but all other alternatives afforded by current tech will just shif…

It just requires a group of people to start a new bunch of niche indexing projects.

My idea, which may be a bit off the wall, is really to go down a path whereby you only index a subject. So node.js guys just give a search engine that indexes node.js material, Python people index Python articles, short-haired cat people index only short-haired cats... They key is to make the subject you are indexing manageable in scope. So you keep it small.

The key things that Google have IMO is how good they are at locating documents, and ensuring that they have mapped out their search to what is relevant. But I think that for those who know what they are looking for, specific indexing of a particular domain of knowledge would make searching more relevant.

Now the next steps are to find a way to discover this content. But in this case, submitting to the smaller indexers would be helpful. Take HN for instance - in the grand scheme of things it's a big index of stuff that interests hackers, now if you indexed HN that would be a search engine based on user submitted links.

Then you could figure out a way for indexes to collaborate with each other.

What it would in essence do would be to democratize search. And it would penalise information that wasn't in the open, though someone could make it work by paying for links to good content and charging a monthly fee to use their index. The index would be a broker, but the more reputable it is the more content it can index. And the market would stabilise on a price - if you can't afford it, you use a competitor, of you could make your own.

It would need a framework for decentralised collaboration, and perhaps a good mechanism for the indexing and displaying search results.

Just an idea. Might not be practical!

Re: “Facebook has destroyed the open web”

#44

Post by bigphishy »

5ilv3r wrote: post #29
codecamper wrote: post #27

why couldn't we create a decentralized social network. could such a thing exist?

https://diasporafoundation.org/ and http://pump.io/ are attempts at that.

Have to second diaspora,Diaspora is a vestige of intellectual content and quality discussion.

Re: “Facebook has destroyed the open web”

#45

Post by rhizome »

fallenshell wrote: post #2

"Against this global community" "Going against progress" Sorry Zuck, but shut the fuck up. All you want is more money and power. A great example is the free "internet" initiative he's pushing; all to lock people in Facebook. This guy truly is, the world's biggest hypocrite.

This guy truly is, the world's biggest hypocrite

"Like anyone can even know that."

Re: “Facebook has destroyed the open web”

#46

Post by erik14th »

paulddraper wrote: post #35
5ilv3r wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hyperlinks still work." I observe that this is increasingly no longer true. Links no longer show you when you have visited them. Chains of 301s are common. Tracking links are now the norm. The link text almost never is where you are actually going. Pages automatically redirect you based on a ton of probed information (mobile, desktop, tablet, logged in to G+, logged into facebook, etc), and even normal browser short…

I must use 100+ links a day with 99% success rate.

silv3r does have a point tho, increasingly pages change according to information they know about you. I'm from Brazil but I usually use browsers in english, which leads to weird experiences in some websites including google.

Re: “Facebook has destroyed the open web”

#47

Post by awinter-py »

chris_wot wrote: post #43
Razengan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The internet (or more specifically, information) was going to get harder to find and navigate anyway, once you turn it loose on a few billion people. That sheds light on a much scarier issue: Google.com has effectively BECOME the internet. How do you find information that isn't indexed by Google? There has to be a better way than just word of mouth, but all other alternatives afforded by current tech will just shif…

It just requires a group of people to start a new bunch of niche indexing projects. My idea, which may be a bit off the wall, is really to go down a path whereby you only index a subject. So node.js guys just give a search engine that indexes node.js material, Python people index Python articles, short-haired cat people index only short-haired cats... They key is to make the subject you are indexing manageable in sco…

If you know how to do the topic detection you don't need separate indexes

Re: “Facebook has destroyed the open web”

#48

Post by kangar00 »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #12

Facebook hasn't destroyed the web - it's still there and functioning fine. Hyperlinks still work. What FB has done is made it easier for the lazy to connect with and stay within their own interest groups. FB has made it easy for people to ignore negative information with tons of cat pictures (I am as guilty as anyone for that) and cheerful little meaningless quotes. It's made it easier to post misinformation and spre…

> Facebook hasn't destroyed the web - it's still there and functioning fine. Hyperlinks still work.

Completely agree.

And let's choose something else similar, for the sake of argument.

Google dominates web search at 64% of searches: https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Market-Rankings/comScore-R...

Post anyone could write: "That's so unfair, because Google owns more than half of all searches. They get to decide what you find on the web!"

In fact, the argument of the bias bubble is the one that Duck Duck Go uses, and I don't disagree with it. Google's results are biased.

However, does the fact that Google can and does hide some (or even many) relevant pages on the web from you make them responsible for "closing the web"?

Of course not! Without Google, instead of random but relevant websites and blogs providing answers when you search, you'd probably go to a centralized sites for information or data, which could be biased and ignorant.

Without Google, think of all of the internet companies that never would have grown because they would never have been found.

Back to Facebook. Sure, many on Facebook just share photos, comments, have discussions, etc. But, there are a lot of links shared and pages you can like to get more links in your feed. As a Facebook user, I see much more new content and read information I would have been unaware of if I'd only been reading HN or a news website. I also share the best stories from HN, exposing a number of my friends to articles they would not have otherwise read.

In my opinion, Facebook hasn't closed the web. In fact, it seems that the web would have been more closed if Facebook and Google had never existed.

Re: “Facebook has destroyed the open web”

#50

Post by vinceguidry »

devishard wrote: post #23
vinceguidry wrote: post #16

The article is as stupid as the website it's on is. Value-added sharing mechanisms that take the expertise out of creating useful Internet content does not de-democratize the Internet. You are still as free as before to make your own websites and share your content the way it was done before Facebook. Facebook is popular but that can't be held against it. More generally, populism by itself does not threaten democracy…

> You are still as free as before to make your own websites and share your content the way it was done before Facebook. And nobody will read them if you don't integrate with Facebook and other social media--where you will be censored. > But it's the people that are at fault here, they are the ones that let themselves get hoodwinked. Did you really claim that scam victims are to blame when they get scammed, and not th…

> And nobody will read them if you don't integrate with Facebook and other social media--where you will be censored.

That's not an issue with Facebook, it's the natural consequence of being popular. Things are popular because the public likes them. You can't say that something being powerful because the public made them powerful is undemocratic. Either you're giving the public what they want or you're not. Dethroning Facebook would be profoundly undemocratic. Facebook is a public institution, albeit under private management.

> Did you really claim that scam victims are to blame when they get scammed, and not the scammers?

The people are bigger than the politicians. Politicians have to, at some point, give the people what they want. The days where you can brutally put down rebellions is over. Not even CCP can get away with it. Napoleon could not have given Europe war if the French truly didn't want war.

Napoleon did not have to scam the French, they went into it willingly.

Democracy is the progressive march of what most people want over what a few people want. If what most people want is stupid, democracy will not save you from that.

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