Live data from Hacker News

Tech giants are hijacking the internet

dw.com

61–70 of 143 posts

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#61
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The removal attempt of HTTP/1.1 is the biggest censorship in history. I’d love some more context on this.

All browsers now default to blocking HTTP URLs. Anti-virus software blocks native applications that use HTTP.

HTTP/1.1 on TLS works perfectly fine.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a solution that's far less invasive. The article offered it, and I've also repeatedly espoused it: "Enforcing open standards to enable users to share videos, images and texts across platforms is paramount." The reason there are tech monopolies is because of the network effect. It's not practical to expect healthy competition in domains where your product's quality is primarily driven by the number of users yo…

No, the problem is no one is willing to pay for any of these services. How many people are paying for their news? For something like YouTube? That stuff costs mega $$$ Back in the day, you were forced to pay for things. You wanted news? You had to put in some coins for a newspaper. Now you sign on and you get news and YouTube seemingly for free… open standards or not, someone has to pay for it one way or another.

There are definitely people who will and still do pay for these things, Apple News+ or whatever is an example of news...also WSJ, NYT, Economist subscriptions...Instagram verified checkmarks. The question is how do these companies capture both the paying and non paying users...and that is through advertising. If you pay any attention, the amount of ads you watch is your payment to these companies for "free" services.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#63
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The removal attempt of HTTP/1.1 is the biggest censorship in history. I’d love some more context on this.

All browsers now default to blocking HTTP URLs. Anti-virus software blocks native applications that use HTTP.

Luckily you can get the https easily. I’ve been using https://letsencrypt.org/ to get it encrypted. Was fast and free. No real barrier just a bunch of setup.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#64

Well DW could do something about it by at least adding the fediverse on their abominable "follow us on X, Y, Z". DW does not even have an RSS feed for chris sake. The press is complicit in the hijacking of the internet. They made a Faustian pact. Now they are crying foul.

I think you are misreading the situation. It’s not enough to have open standards if the big guys just consume that data into their closed platforms.

The author argues they are too powerful. We had open standards and big tech embraced and then locked it into their platforms. We need regulations at this point.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#65
post #55

They're hijacking your internet. I'm not on social media and let me tell you the rest of the web still exists. Its pace is much slower, but it's there.

Imagine a couple of years from now, you're working on some stuff for a client. Client sends you a link, but you can't open the link with your non-chromium browser of choice - it's been built on tech provided by google, and google says: You can only use chrome to view this site.

You try to download chrome, but since you once used some ad-block plugin, you've been banned from using all alphabet products. Google has also decided that in order to use chrome, you need to have a valid user account to login with.

Clients says screw this, I'm gonna find someone else.

(switch out client with friends, family, or whatever - one web for you, one web for the rest).

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#66
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they bother adding the fediverse, it's mostly useless, would provide no benefit to them, and they'd probably get defederated eventually for publishing something someone doesn't like.

[flagged]

> I can imagine that somebody hurt your feelings on the fediverse

This sort of junk is completely out of place. If you have a counter argument, state it.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#67

Big tech is big because they built sustainable products that appeal to billions of people. There was no hijacking. Anyone can still make their own site and become popular. TikTok was able to become the number one site despite not being from big tech.

> built sustainable products Google is spending many millions of dollars per year developing and maintaining free software like Chrome and Android. If the government will miraculously enforce the current anti-competition laws and break the company like they did with Bell Systems in 1982, these Google’s products will suddenly become unsustainable.

> Google is spending many millions of dollars per year developing and maintaining free software like Chrome and Android.

From AOSP docs:

> Android is intentionally and explicitly an open source effort (as opposed to free software)

https://source.android.com/docs/setup/about

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#68
post #55

They're hijacking your internet. I'm not on social media and let me tell you the rest of the web still exists. Its pace is much slower, but it's there.

Imagine a couple of years from now, you're working on some stuff for a client. Client sends you a link, but you can't open the link with your non-chromium browser of choice - it's been built on tech provided by google, and google says: You can only use chrome to view this site. You try to download chrome, but since you once used some ad-block plugin, you've been banned from using all alphabet products. Google has als…

I think we can all think of potential futures. I don't see why this one is particularly likely. Google has open sourced the guts of its browser so others can make non-Google controlled browsers, and they fund one of the two only real competitors to their browser.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#69
post #55

They're hijacking your internet. I'm not on social media and let me tell you the rest of the web still exists. Its pace is much slower, but it's there.

Imagine a couple of years from now, you're working on some stuff for a client. Client sends you a link, but you can't open the link with your non-chromium browser of choice - it's been built on tech provided by google, and google says: You can only use chrome to view this site. You try to download chrome, but since you once used some ad-block plugin, you've been banned from using all alphabet products. Google has als…

This is what is happening with my "Android for Work" profile. Since it's all Microsoft and "segregated", Outlook (for work) refuses to open links because I don't have Edge installed, even though I have Chrome and Firefox.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#70
post #55

They're hijacking your internet. I'm not on social media and let me tell you the rest of the web still exists. Its pace is much slower, but it's there.

I'm not into social media either. But unless you want to live like a hermit, you don't have much choice nowadays but to visit these sites from time to time.

1. I can't use anything else other than WhatsApp for messaging with families and friends. Thank God my kids' school still uses good-old email for communications.

2. Almost all the useful video tutorials/mini-documentaries/science-shorts are on Youtube and nowhere else.

3. Family and friends always send me links to videos and posts on Facebook, Twitter and Tiktok. I don't usually click when it's just some meme or for laughs but sometimes it a post that matters to me/them enough to click on it.

Post reply on HN