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Facebook hasn't destroyed the web - it's still there and functioning fine. Hyperlinks still work. What FB has done is made it easier for the lazy to connect wi

Facebook hasn't destroyed the web - it's still there and functioning fine. Hyperlinks still work. What FB has done is made it easier for the lazy to connect with and stay within their own interest groups. FB has made it easy for people to ignore negative information with tons of cat pictures (I am as guilty as anyone for that) and cheerful little meaningless quotes. It's made it easier to post misinformation and spread it quickly. But none of that has destroyed the internet. The internet (or more specifically, information) was going to get harder to find and navigate anyway, once you turn it loose on a few billion people. Sure, in the early days, you could encapsulate 75% of existing websites in one directory, but thanks to the efforts of spammers, link farmers, and other lowlife, in addition to the efforts of well-meaning people, and faulty and well-working search algorithms, it's a mess. But it was going to happen and FB is not to blame for it. If they are to blame for it, we all equally share the guilt.

codecamper 11y ago
well said. FB just makes it easy for lazy people to use the Internet. It turns out that most people don't want much more of a challenge beyond just reading their feeds. plus. it's blue. people like blue.
5ilv3r 11y ago
"Hyperlinks still work." I observe that this is increasingly no longer true. Links no longer show you when you have visited them. Chains of 301s are common. Tracking links are now the norm. The link text almost never is where you are actually going. Pages automatically redirect you based on a ton of probed information (mobile, desktop, tablet, logged in to G+, logged into facebook, etc), and even normal browser shortcuts to interact with them are no longer working correctly with so many weird effing span and divs being recast into "links" that never work right, in css of all things. No no. The modern hyperlink is totally busted. I blame the framework hockers and the halfass web"app" community.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  I must use 100+ links a day with 99% success rate.
  - 5ilv3r 10y ago
    Nice job!
  - erik14th 10y ago
    silv3r does have a point tho, increasingly pages change according to information they know about you. I'm from Brazil but I usually use browsers in english, which leads to weird experiences in some websites including google.
  - blub 10y ago
    If you use the web on the terms of content publishers, being flooded with ads, tracked everywhere, getting hit by malware every now and then, you will have a good success rate at "opening links". Congratulations for that phyrric victory. If one however desires even a little bit of control of their browsing experience, the hyperlink and the modern web are broken. It seems to be impossible to click a link and display a simple text with some images nowadays on the web, even if that's the great majority of the available content. Something will break - one will be treated either with an empty white page, missing menus, missing styles, etc.
    - mercer 10y ago
      I've been using Little Snitch (OSX) for a while now, and more recently set up a 'restricted' profile because I'm on a bad internet connection. It's shocking to notice how bloated almost all url endpoints are! It's a rare site that only produces one 'access' popup, and a large number of sites, in particular Big Media, make requests all over the place, most of them involving tracking, ads, or advertorials.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  There any good Chrome extensions out there that'll strip all of the tracking data from URLs as you browse?
  - mbreese 10y ago
    I think that they mean instead of going to "http://example.com" http://example.com", the link is instead to "http://t.co/asdf11" http://t.co/asdf11", which redirects you to example.com. It's hard to strip the tracking data away from links like this because resolving the link (to get the redirect) is needed. The only alternative that I could think of is if there was a third-party who resolved the redirects. Something akin to a Bitcoin tumbler. But, not all links like this are trying to track individuals (like ads), rather "engagement" or marketing sources (A FB post might get one tracking link whereas a tweet might get another). These are legitimate questions that aren't necessarily nefarious. But at the same time, it does go against the spirit, if not the meaning, of "hyperlink".
  - Cenk 10y ago
    I use DirectLinks by Canisbos (http://canisbos.com/directlinks http://canisbos.com/directlinks). It strips the JS from Google and Facebook links and takes me directly to the page. Added bonus: you can copy a link on a Google search result and it will actually copy the link.
    - endemic 10y ago
      Sadly ironic: the link to download the extension is tracked. (http://imgur.com/EqZEdhH http://imgur.com/EqZEdhH)
- herbst 10y ago
  Not to mention how many of these links link into closed networks like facebook and therefore are not even public available even thought they appear and are described to be.
raddad 11y ago
>easier for the lazy to connect with and stay within their own interest groups Facebook reminds me of AOL. People who had AOL had no idea of anything outside of AOL. I had to show many how to get out of AOL and they were astonished there was so much more. If Facebook was an ISP it truly would be the new AOL.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  There's always going to be a niche for a service that does what AOL and FB do. FB will be killed by its successor soon - possibly within five years, certainly within 10. Jury's out on whether it will be founded in the US, or whether it will even need a web browser. (I strongly suspect the answer to both questions will be "no.')
  - mohsinr 10y ago
    There was one, but FB bought it ... WhatsApp (Now FB is using Whatsapp use all phone contacts in your address book stored and use that info to show your friends/people to connect with on FB... FB kept saying to connect with our local XYZ service provider :) as somehow his number was stored in my phone. )
- jeeva 10y ago
  Weren't they actually providing bandwidth to some small area, with the provision that only Facebook was unmetered? Seems pretty close...
  - raddad 10y ago
    They tried that in India, India told them to buzz off.
Razengan 10y ago
> The internet (or more specifically, information) was going to get harder to find and navigate anyway, once you turn it loose on a few billion people. That sheds light on a much scarier issue: Google.com has effectively BECOME the internet. How do you find information that isn't indexed by Google? There has to be a better way than just word of mouth, but all other alternatives afforded by current tech will just shift the problem to some other megaportal.
- Nadya 10y ago
  >There has to be a better way than just word of mouth, but all other alternatives afforded by current tech will just shift the problem to some other "megaportal." I don't see why there has to be. Word of mouth is probably the best method possible.
- chris_wot 10y ago
  It just requires a group of people to start a new bunch of niche indexing projects. My idea, which may be a bit off the wall, is really to go down a path whereby you only index a subject. So node.js guys just give a search engine that indexes node.js material, Python people index Python articles, short-haired cat people index only short-haired cats... They key is to make the subject you are indexing manageable in scope. So you keep it small. The key things that Google have IMO is how good they are at locating documents, and ensuring that they have mapped out their search to what is relevant. But I think that for those who know what they are looking for, specific indexing of a particular domain of knowledge would make searching more relevant. Now the next steps are to find a way to discover this content. But in this case, submitting to the smaller indexers would be helpful. Take HN for instance - in the grand scheme of things it's a big index of stuff that interests hackers, now if you indexed HN that would be a search engine based on user submitted links. Then you could figure out a way for indexes to collaborate with each other. What it would in essence do would be to democratize search. And it would penalise information that wasn't in the open, though someone could make it work by paying for links to good content and charging a monthly fee to use their index. The index would be a broker, but the more reputable it is the more content it can index. And the market would stabilise on a price - if you can't afford it, you use a competitor, of you could make your own. It would need a framework for decentralised collaboration, and perhaps a good mechanism for the indexing and displaying search results. Just an idea. Might not be practical!
kangar00 10y ago
> Facebook hasn't destroyed the web - it's still there and functioning fine. Hyperlinks still work. Completely agree. And let's choose something else similar, for the sake of argument. Google dominates web search at 64% of searches: https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Market-Rankings/comScore-Releases-November-2015-US-Desktop-Search-Engine-Rankings https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Market-Rankings/comScore-R... Post anyone could write: "That's so unfair, because Google owns more than half of all searches. They get to decide what you find on the web!" In fact, the argument of the bias bubble is the one that Duck Duck Go uses, and I don't disagree with it. Google's results are biased. However, does the fact that Google can and does hide some (or even many) relevant pages on the web from you make them responsible for "closing the web"? Of course not! Without Google, instead of random but relevant websites and blogs providing answers when you search, you'd probably go to a centralized sites for information or data, which could be biased and ignorant. Without Google, think of all of the internet companies that never would have grown because they would never have been found. Back to Facebook. Sure, many on Facebook just share photos, comments, have discussions, etc. But, there are a lot of links shared and pages you can like to get more links in your feed. As a Facebook user, I see much more new content and read information I would have been unaware of if I'd only been reading HN or a news website. I also share the best stories from HN, exposing a number of my friends to articles they would not have otherwise read. In my opinion, Facebook hasn't closed the web. In fact, it seems that the web would have been more closed if Facebook and Google had never existed.
smadge 10y ago
"hyperlinks still work" Not on Facebook, which is the whole point. You can paste URLs into Facebook, but they aren't hypertext.
- rawTruthHurts 10y ago
  On "the open web", which is mentioned on the point, they still do.
Pica_soO 10y ago
> the lazy the same lazies who refuse to install linux i presume. The lazies who refuse to become experts and share your ideas of the world. This culture, too lazy to create a decent user experience- deserves to suffer.

codecamper 11y ago

well said. FB just makes it easy for lazy people to use the Internet. It turns out that most people don't want much more of a challenge beyond just reading their feeds. plus. it's blue. people like blue.

5ilv3r 11y ago

"Hyperlinks still work." I observe that this is increasingly no longer true. Links no longer show you when you have visited them. Chains of 301s are common. Tracking links are now the norm. The link text almost never is where you are actually going. Pages automatically redirect you based on a ton of probed information (mobile, desktop, tablet, logged in to G+, logged into facebook, etc), and even normal browser shortcuts to interact with them are no longer working correctly with so many weird effing span and divs being recast into "links" that never work right, in css of all things. No no. The modern hyperlink is totally busted. I blame the framework hockers and the halfass web"app" community.

paulddraper 10y ago
I must use 100+ links a day with 99% success rate.
- 5ilv3r 10y ago
  Nice job!
- erik14th 10y ago
  silv3r does have a point tho, increasingly pages change according to information they know about you. I'm from Brazil but I usually use browsers in english, which leads to weird experiences in some websites including google.
- blub 10y ago
  If you use the web on the terms of content publishers, being flooded with ads, tracked everywhere, getting hit by malware every now and then, you will have a good success rate at "opening links". Congratulations for that phyrric victory. If one however desires even a little bit of control of their browsing experience, the hyperlink and the modern web are broken. It seems to be impossible to click a link and display a simple text with some images nowadays on the web, even if that's the great majority of the available content. Something will break - one will be treated either with an empty white page, missing menus, missing styles, etc.
  - mercer 10y ago
    I've been using Little Snitch (OSX) for a while now, and more recently set up a 'restricted' profile because I'm on a bad internet connection. It's shocking to notice how bloated almost all url endpoints are! It's a rare site that only produces one 'access' popup, and a large number of sites, in particular Big Media, make requests all over the place, most of them involving tracking, ads, or advertorials.
toomuchtodo 10y ago
There any good Chrome extensions out there that'll strip all of the tracking data from URLs as you browse?
- mbreese 10y ago
  I think that they mean instead of going to "http://example.com" http://example.com", the link is instead to "http://t.co/asdf11" http://t.co/asdf11", which redirects you to example.com. It's hard to strip the tracking data away from links like this because resolving the link (to get the redirect) is needed. The only alternative that I could think of is if there was a third-party who resolved the redirects. Something akin to a Bitcoin tumbler. But, not all links like this are trying to track individuals (like ads), rather "engagement" or marketing sources (A FB post might get one tracking link whereas a tweet might get another). These are legitimate questions that aren't necessarily nefarious. But at the same time, it does go against the spirit, if not the meaning, of "hyperlink".
- Cenk 10y ago
  I use DirectLinks by Canisbos (http://canisbos.com/directlinks http://canisbos.com/directlinks). It strips the JS from Google and Facebook links and takes me directly to the page. Added bonus: you can copy a link on a Google search result and it will actually copy the link.
  - endemic 10y ago
    Sadly ironic: the link to download the extension is tracked. (http://imgur.com/EqZEdhH http://imgur.com/EqZEdhH)
herbst 10y ago
Not to mention how many of these links link into closed networks like facebook and therefore are not even public available even thought they appear and are described to be.

raddad 11y ago

>easier for the lazy to connect with and stay within their own interest groups Facebook reminds me of AOL. People who had AOL had no idea of anything outside of AOL. I had to show many how to get out of AOL and they were astonished there was so much more. If Facebook was an ISP it truly would be the new AOL.

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
There's always going to be a niche for a service that does what AOL and FB do. FB will be killed by its successor soon - possibly within five years, certainly within 10. Jury's out on whether it will be founded in the US, or whether it will even need a web browser. (I strongly suspect the answer to both questions will be "no.')
- mohsinr 10y ago
  There was one, but FB bought it ... WhatsApp (Now FB is using Whatsapp use all phone contacts in your address book stored and use that info to show your friends/people to connect with on FB... FB kept saying to connect with our local XYZ service provider :) as somehow his number was stored in my phone. )
jeeva 10y ago
Weren't they actually providing bandwidth to some small area, with the provision that only Facebook was unmetered? Seems pretty close...
- raddad 10y ago
  They tried that in India, India told them to buzz off.

Razengan 10y ago

> The internet (or more specifically, information) was going to get harder to find and navigate anyway, once you turn it loose on a few billion people. That sheds light on a much scarier issue: Google.com has effectively BECOME the internet. How do you find information that isn't indexed by Google? There has to be a better way than just word of mouth, but all other alternatives afforded by current tech will just shift the problem to some other megaportal.

Nadya 10y ago
>There has to be a better way than just word of mouth, but all other alternatives afforded by current tech will just shift the problem to some other "megaportal." I don't see why there has to be. Word of mouth is probably the best method possible.
chris_wot 10y ago
It just requires a group of people to start a new bunch of niche indexing projects. My idea, which may be a bit off the wall, is really to go down a path whereby you only index a subject. So node.js guys just give a search engine that indexes node.js material, Python people index Python articles, short-haired cat people index only short-haired cats... They key is to make the subject you are indexing manageable in scope. So you keep it small. The key things that Google have IMO is how good they are at locating documents, and ensuring that they have mapped out their search to what is relevant. But I think that for those who know what they are looking for, specific indexing of a particular domain of knowledge would make searching more relevant. Now the next steps are to find a way to discover this content. But in this case, submitting to the smaller indexers would be helpful. Take HN for instance - in the grand scheme of things it's a big index of stuff that interests hackers, now if you indexed HN that would be a search engine based on user submitted links. Then you could figure out a way for indexes to collaborate with each other. What it would in essence do would be to democratize search. And it would penalise information that wasn't in the open, though someone could make it work by paying for links to good content and charging a monthly fee to use their index. The index would be a broker, but the more reputable it is the more content it can index. And the market would stabilise on a price - if you can't afford it, you use a competitor, of you could make your own. It would need a framework for decentralised collaboration, and perhaps a good mechanism for the indexing and displaying search results. Just an idea. Might not be practical!

kangar00 10y ago

> Facebook hasn't destroyed the web - it's still there and functioning fine. Hyperlinks still work. Completely agree. And let's choose something else similar, for the sake of argument. Google dominates web search at 64% of searches: https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Market-Rankings/comScore-Releases-November-2015-US-Desktop-Search-Engine-Rankings https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Market-Rankings/comScore-R... Post anyone could write: "That's so unfair, because Google owns more than half of all searches. They get to decide what you find on the web!" In fact, the argument of the bias bubble is the one that Duck Duck Go uses, and I don't disagree with it. Google's results are biased. However, does the fact that Google can and does hide some (or even many) relevant pages on the web from you make them responsible for "closing the web"? Of course not! Without Google, instead of random but relevant websites and blogs providing answers when you search, you'd probably go to a centralized sites for information or data, which could be biased and ignorant. Without Google, think of all of the internet companies that never would have grown because they would never have been found. Back to Facebook. Sure, many on Facebook just share photos, comments, have discussions, etc. But, there are a lot of links shared and pages you can like to get more links in your feed. As a Facebook user, I see much more new content and read information I would have been unaware of if I'd only been reading HN or a news website. I also share the best stories from HN, exposing a number of my friends to articles they would not have otherwise read. In my opinion, Facebook hasn't closed the web. In fact, it seems that the web would have been more closed if Facebook and Google had never existed.

smadge 10y ago

"hyperlinks still work" Not on Facebook, which is the whole point. You can paste URLs into Facebook, but they aren't hypertext.

rawTruthHurts 10y ago
On "the open web", which is mentioned on the point, they still do.

Pica_soO 10y ago

> the lazy the same lazies who refuse to install linux i presume. The lazies who refuse to become experts and share your ideas of the world. This culture, too lazy to create a decent user experience- deserves to suffer.