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Disqus, a dark commenting system

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Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#91

Post by unicornporn »

mmgu wrote: post #22
unicornporn wrote: post #8

How is this GDPR compliant? What tracking is used for EU citizens? I've seen no consent notices here in the EU.

Disqus does not track users from GDPR countries by default. My initial story in December 2019 for the Norwegian broadcaster NRK was a result of Disqus not knowing Norway had the GDPR (we are part of EEA, but not EU). Users are checked based on IP whether they come from a GDPR country. If GDPR, they will be put in private mode. A user needs to create a profile and consent to sharing for tracking to begin. Norwegian DP…

Thanks for this!

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#93

Post by hobofan »

spinningslate wrote: post #70
throw14082020 wrote: post #47

The author of the post runs a competitor called Hyvor Talk (he discloses this at the end). I've had hyvor talk for more than a year. I don't run a blog thats very popular, but it has been quite easy to integrate (I use React, Gatsby/ static side generation, and Hyvor Talk has a react component). An example of the system is at the bottom of that blog post. There used to be a free tier, but now there isn't. I am only s…

I'm conflicted about the free tier thing. On the one hand, I get that personal/non-commercial sites don't generate revenue - so shelling out for a comment system is unattractive. On the other hand: the whole reason that shady, dark pattern, privacy killers like disqus exist is because people won't pay for stuff. It's at least partly cultural. We'll pay for hosting, or internet access. Why won't we pay for other servi…

I've been thinking about that a bit recently, for a product I'm building where I'd also like to offer a free tier, but at the same time I'm afraid that it's too much of a hassle.

I'm wondering if an open subsidized approach could work: E.g. for every paid user you allow 100 (or at whatever threshold) users to sign up for the free tier. Possible one could also set up a monthly donation system that directly goes towards financing free accounts.

I'm sure something like that has been tried, but I haven't really been able to find any good examples for that.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#94

Post by xfz »

Title should probably have [Advert] prefix or something.

That said, I deleted my Disqus account as part of a general cleanup and I'm glad I did.

The web needs to shift more to a model where people pay openly for services; ideally with micropayments or a Spotify-like subscription to ensure a large user base. Free products are ok as a gateway to the paid product, but not if the business model relies on selling data (either directly, or as in Facebook's case selling the processing of data).

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#95

Post by AntiImperialist »

spinningslate wrote: post #70
throw14082020 wrote: post #47

The author of the post runs a competitor called Hyvor Talk (he discloses this at the end). I've had hyvor talk for more than a year. I don't run a blog thats very popular, but it has been quite easy to integrate (I use React, Gatsby/ static side generation, and Hyvor Talk has a react component). An example of the system is at the bottom of that blog post. There used to be a free tier, but now there isn't. I am only s…

I'm conflicted about the free tier thing. On the one hand, I get that personal/non-commercial sites don't generate revenue - so shelling out for a comment system is unattractive. On the other hand: the whole reason that shady, dark pattern, privacy killers like disqus exist is because people won't pay for stuff. It's at least partly cultural. We'll pay for hosting, or internet access. Why won't we pay for other servi…

>But it seems inconsistent to both rail against privacy invasion and refuse to pay for stuff.

False choice. It doesn't have to be one or the other. There are other options: like do some work and host it yourself... or something that is publicly paid for, or something that is made available for free as open source which can be setup by the users themselves, or some generous person volunteering their service for free.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#96

Post by hobofan »

ymolodtsov wrote: post #60
scubbo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And? The article _starts_ with the point that "if the product is free, you are the product". Shouldn't we therefore _prefer_ a paid-for model, which must demonstrate its value in competition with similar competitors (for instance, by protecting privacy better?) Not all free markets are bad (though many are, and many are less free than they appear). A good free product is good, but I would rather a good not-free one t…

By they way, you're not paying for Hacker News the last time I checked. "If the product is free you're the product" is such a blatant statement people throw around like they don't have to prove their point anymore.

Still holds for HN.

Our attention towards HN (and with that YC, it's accelerators and its startups) is the product. That's rather benign compared to most other "free" products, but it's still true.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#97

Post by loop22 »

h_anna_h wrote: post #82

I have (had) a Disqus account that I connected to via my google account. I say had because I haven't been able to login in a year or so via firefox. I just get a page that says "There was an error submitting the form. If you're having difficulty, try repeating the action on https://disqus.com " with an annoying meme gift on the background. Luckily the title of the page says "Embed: CSRF verification failed (403)" but…

> I wish there was some kind of service or plugin (preferably not based on a centralized service) where one could easily leave comments on any site even if the site itself did not support comments.

IIRC the Dissenter extension was just that, albeit centralized.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#98

Post by tal8d »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #75
tal8d wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been around long enough to remember a time when the web was full of content that didn't originate from profit motive. Just a bunch of people talking about their interests and sharing their creations. Even the stuff that was commercially motivated was largely innocuous, because they were focused more on brand awareness - which doesn't need a surveillance system. All that personal interest stuff is still out there…

Hobbyist stuff still exists. But even back then, you're still talking about a small fraction of internet content. We don't want just the fruits of everyone's hobbyist weekend warrior free-time. We want it to be profitable to make the stuff we want to consume so that we get better content than hobby/charity content. Also, most things aren't hobbyist cheap. Even in the era you're looking upon nostalgically, consider me…

These rebuttals always sound like "But if I didn't pay AWS $1k/yr I wouldn't be able to host my family photo album powered by a 15 stack frame deep Nodejs nosql-backed container!"

> We want it to be profitable to make the stuff we want to consume so that we get better content than hobby/charity content.

We, huh? The most enriching content you've ever encountered on the web, was it churned out by the likes of about.com? The places you've had the most meaningful conversations, were they on platforms that regularly purge and actively censor content they deem not to be advertiser friendly? What you are describing sounds a lot more like network television to me. If you just want to zone out in front of the latest episode of "Dancing with the Stars", you already have that option.

I get the kneejerk assumption that if something even approaches the potential of being nostalgic, it must be the product of delusion. But that really isn't applicable here, as we all know the ways that technology and infrastructure has been twisted to benefit commercial interests at the expense of everyone else.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#99

Post by CarVac »

akvadrako wrote: post #31
andreareina wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I helped someone set up discourse[1] a long time ago, don't know how it stands up these days; it's got basically zero presence in the parts of the web I'm around. [1] https://www.discourse.org/

Discourse is quite popular, I see it regularly on new sites. Though it doesn't really fit the same niche as disqus.

I've seen it used to operate as footer comments on blogs.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#100

Post by dmos62 »

xfz wrote: post #94

Title should probably have [Advert] prefix or something. That said, I deleted my Disqus account as part of a general cleanup and I'm glad I did. The web needs to shift more to a model where people pay openly for services; ideally with micropayments or a Spotify-like subscription to ensure a large user base. Free products are ok as a gateway to the paid product, but not if the business model relies on selling data (ei…

Spotify relies on monopolizing your listening data. You should avoid it on the same premise. Delivering music is easy; their unique offering is the recommendation engine. There's no competition because there's no open listening data. If we could make it open, then you could have actual competition in the space (coincidentlly Spotify recommendations aren't great at the moment).
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