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Winning back the Internet by building our own

roarmag.org

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Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#81

Post by xpe »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #25

It's not just that corporations own a lot of the physical infrastructure. Another factor is that humans as a group tend to force other humans to commercialize what they do, even if they expressly don't want to do that and would rather publish it without ads, without paywalls, without subscriptions, etc. We do a poor job of making it possible for people who create open source and people who create free content to get…

> If you want a better world, pry open your wallet and give a dollar to Patreon for an independent artist or a $5 PayPal tip or something.

This is a well-intentioned but contingent argument. From the point of view of a single organization, raising a small amount of money may not serve as an efficient means to making a better world. Put another way, there is a non-linear relationship between money raised and impact.

When I think about giving money to an organization for a cause, I think about (at least): the efficiency of the organization; the importance of the cause; concentration (versus dilution) of resources; and concentration (versus dilution) of power.

For example, consider the difference between:

A. 1 million people giving $5 to one of 10,000 organizations evenly.

B. 1 million people giving $5 to one of 10 organizations evenly.

I'm not generally saying which allocation is better; I'm simply pointing out how concentration of donations makes a big difference. An organization with $500K can tackle different kinds of problems than one with $500.

Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#82

Post by burlesona »

Not what the article suggested, but I think there’s actually more potential for local alternatives at the service level, rather than the network level. For example I’ve been considering replacing Gmail with a Helm. (https://www.thehelm.com/).

Anyone have experience with that to share, or know other products that are similar: “easily run your own server for X”?

Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#83

Post by xpe »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #25

It's not just that corporations own a lot of the physical infrastructure. Another factor is that humans as a group tend to force other humans to commercialize what they do, even if they expressly don't want to do that and would rather publish it without ads, without paywalls, without subscriptions, etc. We do a poor job of making it possible for people who create open source and people who create free content to get…

> Another factor is that humans as a group tend to force other humans to commercialize what they do, even if they expressly don't want to do that and would rather publish it without ads, without paywalls, without subscriptions, etc.

You've strained the meaning of the word 'force'.

Can you find another way to say it?

Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#84

Post by xpe »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #25

It's not just that corporations own a lot of the physical infrastructure. Another factor is that humans as a group tend to force other humans to commercialize what they do, even if they expressly don't want to do that and would rather publish it without ads, without paywalls, without subscriptions, etc. We do a poor job of making it possible for people who create open source and people who create free content to get…

> People who actually want to make something happen will do the small thing in their power to accomplish today.

I take your point, but I want to say a little more. You may agree?

To accomplish big things, sometimes you have to change many minds just a little bit. Sometimes you start by asking people to notice something. Then maybe you ask them to wonder if it could be different. Then maybe you convince people that it should be different. Then maybe you convince people that it must be different; that the status quo is not ok. This can be hard work; think about the organizing for civil rights in the US.

This process involves big ideas. Sure, asking people to give $5 for the cause can help, and you also need people willing to do more than give. You need them to agree deeply, because you need their support over time.

Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#85

Post by floren »

ozim wrote: post #36

Well I clicked it because I am quite a fan of making internet more open. Unfortunately this article in my opinion is at best just bad and misguided. New laptops rarely have RJ-45 nowadays, point here is that article is technically misleading and overly simplistic. You are not going to achieve much by just connecting laptops with cable, let alone just switches and then connecting those to more switches, it is far more…

> I don't believe in piece below to be true, because one had to be in academia, science facility or government to connect: "For a very long time, no one paid for Internet access because Internet access was not something that was sold. It was like a public beachfront at the ocean. If you were near it, you could jump in, no credit card required.".

When the author says "if you were near it, you could jump it", they meant "near it" == "in academia, defense, or government".

Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#86

Post by balaa »

dnautics wrote: post #78

Perhaps this is self-serving of me, since I want to build a product like this, but: I think honestly the problem is that these systems are not consumer-oriented products. I think there is a real desire by people to not have to live as rentiers in the digital marketplace, but there are not really products that cater to that. IMO There's a place for something that merges a NAS, with some sort of overlay over current IP…

Check out our project: https://noteworthy.tech/overview

Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#87

Post by humanrebar »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #71
humanrebar wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rude and dishonorable to take something someone doesn't want to give you. Even so, it's not the same category of misdeed as stealing bread. If you eat a loaf of bread, someone else cannot. But if you perform or listen to a song, it's still there for others. Sometimes, especially in the case of technically copyrighted but practically abandoned works, sharing the work is actually more likely to keep it available f…

> If you eat a loaf of bread, someone else cannot. But if you perform or listen to a song, it's still there for others. OK, that's good for you and the "others", but what about the person who spent time and energy to write the song and perform? Just because it's "still there for others", it's ok to steal it? You are only thinking from the consumer's point of view and neglecting why people produce things of value in t…

Music predates currency systems by quite a bit. I'm sure the art would change quite a bit if charging to listen to a song was no longer practical.

Though I'm unconvinced that music would disappear. I can think of many kinds of musicians that do not get compensated per se: small time streamers, buskers, student musicians, garage bands, amateur music clubs, and religious music leaders off the top of my head.

To reiterate, I think it's fair for someone to ask for compensation for providing entertainment. Also I think considerate people will respect the wishes of creators in consuming content.

But bottom line, I don't think people have natural rights to a particular business model or to control the expression of others (which is fundamental to copyright). Creators do have legal rights, but that's a whole other set of issues.

Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#88

Post by balaa »

burlesona wrote: post #82

Not what the article suggested, but I think there’s actually more potential for local alternatives at the service level, rather than the network level. For example I’ve been considering replacing Gmail with a Helm. ( https://www.thehelm.com/ ). Anyone have experience with that to share, or know other products that are similar: “easily run your own server for X”?

There's a lot of movement in this direction. Check out:

https://cloudron.io https://noteworthy.tech (my project)

Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#89

Post by bullen »

pryelluw wrote: post #12
bullen wrote: post #2

http://radiomesh.org

That site has no links. Do you have more info?

Not yet, I'm busy making a 3D MMO engine/game from scratch:

http://talk.binarytask.com/task?id=5959519327505901449

Also hesitating between Java and C for the reference implementation.

Also waiting for better hardware:

LoRa is too closed and Zero uses too much energy!

The radio + screen + controls PCB should be one HAT.

No point in using a IPS screen that small, better would be a persistent state screen like memory LCD or ePaper.

Also looking at using a smaller OS than linux... so don't hold your breath!

Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#90

Post by Nbox9 »

dnautics wrote: post #78

Perhaps this is self-serving of me, since I want to build a product like this, but: I think honestly the problem is that these systems are not consumer-oriented products. I think there is a real desire by people to not have to live as rentiers in the digital marketplace, but there are not really products that cater to that. IMO There's a place for something that merges a NAS, with some sort of overlay over current IP…

Have you looked at Western Digital’s My Cloud? It’s more or less what you described.
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