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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

#51

Post by kunai »

blast wrote: post #49
152334H wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fuck boosting engagement.

There is an ever-dwindling minority of people who think "fuck boosting engagement" is a valid strategy in this era. Online, engagement is everything. We have all, through social media and feed algorithms, been reduced to acting out the most insipid style of court-jester antics to try and garner attention; the SNR is just too high for good content to thrive.

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

#52

Post by cosmicgadget »

chromacity wrote: post #5

Yes, but here's the realization I had some time ago: no one cares. The billions of people online don't care. The internet is overwhelmingly accessed from mobile devices and used chiefly for shopping, scrolling through TikTok, watching Netflix, swiping on Tinder, and so on. More importantly, we don't care, not really. We pay lip service to it, but what have we done to foster the open / small web today? Many of us work…

> what have we done to foster the open / small web today?

Personally, I did a bunch of labeling of my indieweb index. Hopefully a fair chunk of HN users read a blog or two but its understandable if the news has stolen a lot of attention.

That's all it takes. Nobody has to quit their day job or create an open Tiktok alternative, the old web just needs patrons (with clicks, comments, or hrefs).

If you prefer the walled gardens, there is nothing wrong with that. But there are a lot of open web contributors out there.

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

#53

Post by pdonis »

dyauspitr wrote: post #37
gausswho wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean, there is discussion and a sense of community here. I’m not sure what exactly defines social media, but this is more than just a link aggregator.

> there is discussion and a sense of community here

That's been true of discussion forums for longer than the Internet has been available to the public. I was on discussion forums over dialup in the 1980s. The term "social media" didn't even exist yet, nor did the business model of trying to monetize people's online data.

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

#55

Post by cosmicgadget »

bruce511 wrote: post #44
cosmicgadget wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is any site with a login "not the open web"? This one. The open web is freely accessible to anyone on the internet. > So if I'm hosting on my own metal, paid for by paying subscribers, then I'm not Open Web? Yes. It's not necessarily bad, it's just not open.

Thanks for the feedback. So hosting on say Wix is still Open Web? I suppose, is the converse free? Is a site that allows access without a login Open Web? Like say YouTube?

I know indie web camp has a thing against hosting services and probably the small web people would also say blogspot and wordpress and wix are too corpo.

So imho drawing the distinction at not requiring payment/login works as an open web definition. And if self-hosting is a requirement for some people, there are other terms to use.

Youtube, Substack, Medium and the like are open-ish. They're far more of a heavyweight platform than a web host or publishing tool. They could become walled with the flip of a switch. And they can be ad-walled which is testing the limits of openness.

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

#56

Post by pdonis »

necovek wrote: post #41
pdonis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Was Facebook social media before it started adding ads or not? Will non-monetized old school "forums" escape the wrath of "social media" bans for children? Will HN?

> Was Facebook social media before it started adding ads or not?

AFAIK it's had ads for practically its entire existence, and other than venture capital investments, ads have always been virtually its entire revenue.

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

#57

Post by Terr_ »

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…

> These are not bad people! They just don't focus on the internet, or art, or whimsical texts and projects.

Recycling from a prior discussion [0] a Terry Pratchett quote, involving two characters that are inventing print journalism as they go along, with a focus on "the public interest" and short-term audience desires versus civic priorities...

> "Are you saying people aren't interested in the truth?"

> "Listen, what's true to a lot of people is that they need the money for the rent by the end of the week." [holding up document as example] "This is a report of the annual meeting of the Ankh-Morpork Caged Birds Society [...] They've got no say in who runs the city but they can damn well see to it that cockatoos aren't lumped in with parrots. It's not their fault. It's just how things are."

> [...] "It's important! Someone has to care about the... the big truth. [...] if they don't care about anything much beyond things that go squawk in cages then one day there'll be someone in charge of this place who'll make them choke on their own budgies. You want that to happen?"

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45188182

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

#58

Post by pdonis »

necovek wrote: post #41
pdonis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Was Facebook social media before it started adding ads or not? Will non-monetized old school "forums" escape the wrath of "social media" bans for children? Will HN?

> Will non-monetized old school "forums" escape the wrath of "social media" bans for children?

I haven't seen anyone trying to apply such bans to them. Have you?

> Will HN?

I guess we'd have to ask the HN moderators that question.

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

#59

Post by jacquesm »

alephnerd wrote: post #35
jacquesm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say social media is any website where the connections between the participants are as important or even more important than the content. As soon as you get 'followers' it is game over.

> As soon as you get 'followers' it is game over. This is already happening on HN now via HackerSmacker [0]. I've found a couple HN users who have that have apparently been using it to follow and target me with comments whenever I post. [0] - https://hackersmacker.org/

Highly annoying. Hn should block that thing from linking.

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

#60

Post by jacquesm »

bruce511 wrote: post #50
jacquesm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I get the concept of this at a principle level. But how does it play out for you? I mean, to what extent do you succumb to the monoculture because while principles are good, you live in the real world? So, like, what phone OS do you use? There's not much choice but did you choose Android over iOS because it's more open? Or did you go the whole way and use PalmOS or Symbian? Do you pick airlines based on what planes t…

> So, like, what phone OS do you use?

Nokia N800.

> Do you pick airlines based on what planes they fly?

I stopped flying entirely.

> Do you choose Bing over Google?

Still using Google but working very hard on moving away from it.

Yes, I too live in the real world and I'm a really annoying customer for banks, insurance companies and my government by insisting they serve me without bending over and adopting some eco-system that I do not subscribe to. I have a need to interact with my bank, my government, my insurance company and my kids schools and I point blank refuse to be sucked into any of their app driven eco systems.

I'll take it to court if that's what it takes.

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