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Websites were "free" from the start when people were hosting them on their own machines. At this point we have the internet access and cheap hardware that would

Websites were "free" from the start when people were hosting them on their own machines. At this point we have the internet access and cheap hardware that would allow us to take control and build distributed solutions that are "free" in the sense that they only cost our contribution of hosting power or something. Look at the Tor network, for example, the next time you assume that nobody would run a service for free without collecting data or ads. EDIT: I used Tor as an example because of the contrast with data collection companies like Facebook but there are a lot of people who run Tor relays for free that push quite a bit of traffic around. Things like IPFS, blockchains, Mastodon Project, SETI@Home, etc, are examples of free approaches given our modern hardware proliferation.

mschuster91 9y ago
> Look at the Tor network, for example, the next time you assume that nobody would run a service for free without collecting data or ads. Oh an exit node certainly has the capability to collect data. Have enough of them and you can de-anonymize an user.
- wybiral 9y ago
  But not everyone is running exit nodes. And even if they are they get random requests that can't easily be correlated to a source. My point is that most people run those services for free without the expectation of collecting personal data.
  - squiggleblaz 9y ago
    But I think the expectation of free internet services sort of originates in that kind of attitude. Because originally the internet was a bunch of hackers using their spare bandwidth and their spare cpu cycles to host web sites. Perhaps they enjoyed it enough to volunteer the extra cash for dedicated servers and dedicated internet connections. It's only after that in the second step that people try to monetise. Nowadays of course it's money from the getgo, but things have changed. There's still plenty of free today. Lots of people run websites with highly interesting information and then distributed it without benefiting from the ads that run on the site (e.g. a Wordpress blog, where the privacy invasion and ad revenue profits go to Wordpress not the blogger).
inlined 9y ago
There are also still plenty of ways to host content that is free to a reasonable point of usage. See Firebase Hosting [a sister team of mine]: 1GB hosting and 10GB xfer monthly without even dropping a credit card.
deleted 9y ago
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mschuster91 9y ago

> Look at the Tor network, for example, the next time you assume that nobody would run a service for free without collecting data or ads. Oh an exit node certainly has the capability to collect data. Have enough of them and you can de-anonymize an user.

wybiral 9y ago
But not everyone is running exit nodes. And even if they are they get random requests that can't easily be correlated to a source. My point is that most people run those services for free without the expectation of collecting personal data.
- squiggleblaz 9y ago
  But I think the expectation of free internet services sort of originates in that kind of attitude. Because originally the internet was a bunch of hackers using their spare bandwidth and their spare cpu cycles to host web sites. Perhaps they enjoyed it enough to volunteer the extra cash for dedicated servers and dedicated internet connections. It's only after that in the second step that people try to monetise. Nowadays of course it's money from the getgo, but things have changed. There's still plenty of free today. Lots of people run websites with highly interesting information and then distributed it without benefiting from the ads that run on the site (e.g. a Wordpress blog, where the privacy invasion and ad revenue profits go to Wordpress not the blogger).

inlined 9y ago

There are also still plenty of ways to host content that is free to a reasonable point of usage. See Firebase Hosting [a sister team of mine]: 1GB hosting and 10GB xfer monthly without even dropping a credit card.

deleted 9y ago

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