Tech giants are hijacking the internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#71

Post by edgyquant » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 1:06 PM UTC

wayfinder wrote: post #15

somenameforme wrote: post #12

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.

Even if this were true, this is a talking point from the beginning of the internet when there were way less people hooked to it, why does it follow that that makes anything okay? If people won’t pay for a service it’s because they really want or need it.

You’re simply making the case that these services that no one believes useful enough to pay for are controlling everything because they’re frontends for marketing agencies. This isn’t the gotcha you seem to think it is

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#72

Post by edgyquant » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 1:10 PM UTC

RandomWorker wrote: post #63

bullen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is that not a centrally controlled root certificate?

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#73

Post by josho » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 1:20 PM UTC

pluc wrote: 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.

Then you are slow to see the change. Communities are slowly going behind signup walls.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#74

Post by Const-me » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 1:25 PM UTC

rpxio wrote: post #67

Const-me wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

I meant “free as in beer”.

One of the reasons Android was a success while Windows Phone failed, Microsoft charged something like $30 per device for the OS license.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#75

Post by newaccount74 » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 1:34 PM UTC

TrackerFF wrote: post #65

pluc wrote: 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 already happening with lots of small business websites -- they are only on Facebook, so you can't eg. look at the menu without a Facebook account.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#76

Post by consp » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 1:43 PM UTC

newaccount74 wrote: post #75

TrackerFF wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 already happening with lots of small business websites -- they are only on Facebook, so you can't eg. look at the menu without a Facebook account.

Or company help desks, at this point after twitter changes its licensing lots of companies quit it, it was the only social media account I still used for chat-like help. Most now offer Facebook but under no circumstance am I going to create another account. Now I'm stuck with calling and waiting in line since they also stopped doing email (only callback service, which rarely works).

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#77

Post by bell-cot » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 1:44 PM UTC

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #49

Not entirely different from the industrial giants that control other industries. Our lives are largely controlled by them but we don't really see it

True - but there are far fewer techno-utopians hanging around the shipbuilding industry, or soft drink industry, or roofing shingle industry, or ...

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#78

Post by doublerabbit » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 1:44 PM UTC

computerfriend wrote: post #61

bullen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your missing the point. In that browsers insist that you now -must- have HTTPS. And that if you wish to serve an static HTTP website over HTTP you can not without a glaring "This site is unsafe" thrown in your face.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#79

Post by computerfriend » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 1:48 PM UTC

doublerabbit wrote: post #78

computerfriend wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HTTP/1.1 on TLS works perfectly fine.

Your missing the point. In that browsers insist that you now -must- have HTTPS. And that if you wish to serve an static HTTP website over HTTP you can not without a glaring "This site is unsafe" thrown in your face.

> The removal attempt of HTTP/1.1 is the biggest censorship in history.

You're missing the point, which is that this statement has nothing to do with TLS.

Re: Tech giants are hijacking the internet

#80

Post by labcomputer » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 2:03 PM UTC

doublerabbit wrote: post #78

computerfriend wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HTTP/1.1 on TLS works perfectly fine.

Your missing the point. In that browsers insist that you now -must- have HTTPS. And that if you wish to serve an static HTTP website over HTTP you can not without a glaring "This site is unsafe" thrown in your face.

That's because it is unsafe. Without HTTPS, an attacker can inject arbitrary malicious javascript into the page.

The only context in which plain HTTP is ok on today's internet is when you a loading a page from your own server on the same LAN, behind a firewall, when you are reasonably sure that nobody else is in you network.