8 ms·

Somehow, I feel like the old, unregulated internet was better. I wonder if that is just nostalgia or there is something to it. With an unregulated internet, an

by a008t 8y ago

Somehow, I feel like the old, unregulated internet was better. I wonder if that is just nostalgia or there is something to it. With an unregulated internet, any internet user has to take care of their own privacy and anonymity. Barriers for entry for new websites and services are very low. Data breaches and abuses of data can lead to users being concerned about giving their data to tech monopolies, which can enable competition. Regulations like GDPR arguably make users complacent and lowers their guard, as well as strengthens the tech monopolies by adding to their moats. Would Facebook have been able to displace Myspace in the current environment? Or Google displace Yahoo? The internet was doing fine for decades with minimal involvement from governments - why change things?

oblio 8y ago
> The internet was doing fine for decades with minimal involvement from governments - why change things? Things change on their own. The internet used to be accessed by highly sophisticated and technical users. Now it's mainstream. And all mainstream things follow two basic rules: 1. Everything move at the speed of the slowest person. 2. The weakest members of the community need to be protected.
- shady-lady 8y ago
  > The internet used to be accessed by highly sophisticated and technical users. Quaint but that's simply not true unless you're talking pre 90's. No point in kidding ourselves. The internet was accessed by people who accessed the internet. They popped a floppy/cd in a drive and followed instructions. They then opened a browser and typed a url. Nothing sophisticated about it. Nobody was creating electrical signals by hand and sending them down a home made wire.
  - oblio 8y ago
    > Nobody was creating electrical signals by hand and sending them down a home made wire. I think we're talking about completely different levels of sophistication. You're talking about electrical engineers vs regular users, I'm talking about levels of functional literacy... Don't forget that the average Joe/Jane has a level of functional literacy of somewhere around mid to late secondary school. The earliest internet adopters were universities (so a entirely different level of education) and after that it was middle or upper class people who could afford a PC and an internet connection plus had the interest in doing so, considering that PCs until Windows 95 were either too expensive or not very user friendly. The current internet, thanks to mobile devices and cheap, ubiquitous internet access, is truly accessible universally.
    - shady-lady 8y ago
      > highly sophisticated and technical users I'm pointing out that referring to those users as the above is simply not true. As you then point out, wealth(direct or by proxy) was the determinant in whether somebody had internet access, not high technical sophistication. And wealth in and of itself is not a signal of high technical sophistication.
      - TeMPOraL 8y ago
        It wasn't wealth, it was interest. There was a period where the Internet (or PCs in general) were more of a curiosity than anything else, and you had to have some motivation to jump over the complexities of operating a computer and going on-line (not to mention some motivation to buy a PC/get your parents to do it). It served as a natural quality filter for a while.
  - buboard 8y ago
    > Nothing sophisticated about it. Hmm no. You wouldn't even talk about it to avoid sounding like a weirdo.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  3. Everything is dominated by people trying to make money, pushing out all other values.
bad_user 8y ago
I grew up with the Internet. I've been on the Internet since 1995. The old, unregulated Internet was not made of companies milking users of data and violating their privacy. Of course it was better.
psergeant 8y ago
> The internet was doing fine for decades with minimal involvement from governments - why change things? Because the threat landscape — both malware and privacy-related — have seen a sea-change.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
The internet of old was something better. Of course it was, it was full of techies, scientists and hobbyists having absurdly involved discussions on Usenet and IRC. That was before Eternal September and the rampant commercialisation, tracking and grabbing all the data possible as often as possible. The earliest years of commercialisation were pretty good too - hundreds of small sites, all trying really hard, but all with terrible site design. :) The worst that adtech could yet come up with was an ugly animated gif and a little flash - which was super easy to block. "Regulations like GDPR arguably make users complacent and lowers their guard" What guard? How does a non IT expert envisage the ways that harvested data impacts their lives? Or the countless ways it can be connected up with other sources until it becomes pervasive? How are they meant to know that the news article they read has 15 different trackers on it along with the ads, or the reason some creepy retargeting ad turns up later in the day as though it knew what they were thinking? Sometimes I wonder if _I_ know enough to take care adequately, and I've been online since before the www. Now add the dark patterns and misinformation to completely misrepresent what most of these sites are doing with that data. Some of the big names excel at this. "why change things?" Facebook, Google, Microsoft and a hundred others got so greedy about data and tracking that the overreach was impossible to ignore. If GDPR wasn't already in progress, Cambridge Analytica and similar stories would have ensured it would get a reaction soon. Probably a worse reaction.
- strictnein 8y ago
  > "The worst that adtech could yet come up with was an ugly animated gif and a little flash - which was super easy to block." Yeah, people use to complain, loudly, about sites that allowed animated gif banner ads.
Cthulhu_ 8y ago
> any internet user has to take care of their own privacy and anonymity. Easy to say, hard in practice when there's some really dodgy shit going on and given that most people don't actually (want to) dive into the subject, this isn't something that can apply to the modern age. I mean while I agree, you postulate some libertarian ideal - freedom for all on the internet. And while I agree, there's some scummy companies that take liberties with that - and when they have a data leak, it's your information that's out there, despite your own protection. I mean you could advise people to use an adblocker, but when said adblockers are exploited (so that advertisers can be unblocked if they pay a fee, mafia like schemes), or when the creator takes the money and hands over the code and effectively silently-auto-updating backdoor into the user's machine, they're fucked - not because of your best intentions, not because of their ignorance, but because something outside of their control. When there's a big government with the power to shut down companies looming over there telling people to not allow said breaches in the first place, you'll be better off.
- a008t 8y ago
  My main concern is that the big government will be used by big corporations with massive compliance and legal departments to shut down any emerging competition that refuses to be bought out.
apexalpha 8y ago
> Somehow, I feel like the old, unregulated internet was better. I wonder if that is just nostalgia or there is something to it. >With an unregulated internet, any internet user has to take care of their own privacy and anonymity. Barriers for entry for new websites and services are very low. Data breaches and abuses of data can lead to users being concerned about giving their data to tech monopolies, which can enable competition. How is this the 'old internet' and not still the current internet. With exeption maybe to the EU with GDPR now, this is what the internet is: everyone has to take care of their own privacy and anonimity. Barriers for entry for new website and services are lower than they've ever been. You don't even need your own hardware, just rent it. >Regulations like GDPR arguably make users complacent and lowers their guard, So according to this theory, people living outside GDPR territory, like the US, are less complacent regarding their data? Do you really think the _average_ American is less complacent than the average European? I hardly think so. >The internet was doing fine for decades with minimal involvement from governments - why change things? The internet was literally built by government(s). Why Change things? Because we are now finding out people are building massive databases with personal information, bought from small, medium and bigger websites who happily sold it without telling users they did. GDPR prevents this. How can I be 'less complacent' and 'have my guard up' if I don't even know that companies sell my data behind my back?
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  > How can I be 'less complacent' and 'have my guard up' if I don't even know that companies sell my data behind my back? By assuming they will, and taking steps to not provide your data to all and sundry. At the end of the day, companies can sell your data because they have it.
  - apexalpha 8y ago
    >By assuming they will, and taking steps to not provide your data to all and sundry. At the end of the day, companies can sell your data because they have it. Okay I now assume that all companies will harvest as much data as they can. I will now take steps to prevent this. I am now offline and there is no way to know if they do.
gant 8y ago
that's some ancap crap if I ever heard some Facebook and co hire psychologists to make their data collection as painless and humanly possible, most of the time people only ever fully realise the extent of the data collected once they get pinpoint accurate ads, at which point they even resort to accusing facebook of listening to your conversations. The point is, the average person can't assess what exactly you can accomplish with the data you share. You might, but that's typical HN preaching from the ivory tower shit. Just because something works for you don't make it the best solution to everything.
- a008t 8y ago
  So then, one can advocate against the use of social media in general or Facebook in particular, (ironically) run targeted ads on these platforms to educate the users, etc. In truth, I think social media as we know it is on the way out anyway. The new generation will rebel against it, and might go back to writing hand-written letters to each other for all I know. I feel like giving these companies all this attention and treating them as "the new utilities" that are forever to stay here and must be regulated also psychologically cements their position as such.
prablenha 8y ago
The internet was fine before adtech and data hoarders. I don't know why you think this is the fault of the government. New things pop up and we need regulations to protect citizens.
bunderbunder 8y ago
> The internet was doing fine for decades Right, but then Eternal September happened. Nowadays, the vast, vast, vast majority of Internet users don't have the necessary background knowledge to understand how to protect their privacy online, and the people who do have that knowledge tend to concentrate into organizations that have a lot of financial incentive not to respect others' privacy.
BonesJustice 8y ago
> With an unregulated internet, any internet user has to take care of their own privacy and anonymity. Not really, because much of the information data brokers have about you comes from other people. Oh, your mom gave LinkedIn access to her contact list? Now they’ve got your phone number, mailing address, email address, a contact photo for facial recognition, and lord knows what else. Oh, your friend and confidant gave an app access to their text messages and email? Great, some data broker now has a copy of every email and text message sent between you. Hope there wasn’t anything private in there. The argument that you can somehow protect your own privacy on the internet rings hollow when it’s invaded without any action on your part.

by a008t 8y ago

oblio 8y ago

> The internet was doing fine for decades with minimal involvement from governments - why change things? Things change on their own. The internet used to be accessed by highly sophisticated and technical users. Now it's mainstream. And all mainstream things follow two basic rules: 1. Everything move at the speed of the slowest person. 2. The weakest members of the community need to be protected.

shady-lady 8y ago
> The internet used to be accessed by highly sophisticated and technical users. Quaint but that's simply not true unless you're talking pre 90's. No point in kidding ourselves. The internet was accessed by people who accessed the internet. They popped a floppy/cd in a drive and followed instructions. They then opened a browser and typed a url. Nothing sophisticated about it. Nobody was creating electrical signals by hand and sending them down a home made wire.
- oblio 8y ago
  > Nobody was creating electrical signals by hand and sending them down a home made wire. I think we're talking about completely different levels of sophistication. You're talking about electrical engineers vs regular users, I'm talking about levels of functional literacy... Don't forget that the average Joe/Jane has a level of functional literacy of somewhere around mid to late secondary school. The earliest internet adopters were universities (so a entirely different level of education) and after that it was middle or upper class people who could afford a PC and an internet connection plus had the interest in doing so, considering that PCs until Windows 95 were either too expensive or not very user friendly. The current internet, thanks to mobile devices and cheap, ubiquitous internet access, is truly accessible universally.
  - shady-lady 8y ago
    > highly sophisticated and technical users I'm pointing out that referring to those users as the above is simply not true. As you then point out, wealth(direct or by proxy) was the determinant in whether somebody had internet access, not high technical sophistication. And wealth in and of itself is not a signal of high technical sophistication.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      It wasn't wealth, it was interest. There was a period where the Internet (or PCs in general) were more of a curiosity than anything else, and you had to have some motivation to jump over the complexities of operating a computer and going on-line (not to mention some motivation to buy a PC/get your parents to do it). It served as a natural quality filter for a while.
- buboard 8y ago
  > Nothing sophisticated about it. Hmm no. You wouldn't even talk about it to avoid sounding like a weirdo.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
3. Everything is dominated by people trying to make money, pushing out all other values.

bad_user 8y ago

I grew up with the Internet. I've been on the Internet since 1995. The old, unregulated Internet was not made of companies milking users of data and violating their privacy. Of course it was better.

psergeant 8y ago

> The internet was doing fine for decades with minimal involvement from governments - why change things? Because the threat landscape — both malware and privacy-related — have seen a sea-change.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

The internet of old was something better. Of course it was, it was full of techies, scientists and hobbyists having absurdly involved discussions on Usenet and IRC. That was before Eternal September and the rampant commercialisation, tracking and grabbing all the data possible as often as possible. The earliest years of commercialisation were pretty good too - hundreds of small sites, all trying really hard, but all with terrible site design. :) The worst that adtech could yet come up with was an ugly animated gif and a little flash - which was super easy to block. "Regulations like GDPR arguably make users complacent and lowers their guard" What guard? How does a non IT expert envisage the ways that harvested data impacts their lives? Or the countless ways it can be connected up with other sources until it becomes pervasive? How are they meant to know that the news article they read has 15 different trackers on it along with the ads, or the reason some creepy retargeting ad turns up later in the day as though it knew what they were thinking? Sometimes I wonder if _I_ know enough to take care adequately, and I've been online since before the www. Now add the dark patterns and misinformation to completely misrepresent what most of these sites are doing with that data. Some of the big names excel at this. "why change things?" Facebook, Google, Microsoft and a hundred others got so greedy about data and tracking that the overreach was impossible to ignore. If GDPR wasn't already in progress, Cambridge Analytica and similar stories would have ensured it would get a reaction soon. Probably a worse reaction.

strictnein 8y ago
> "The worst that adtech could yet come up with was an ugly animated gif and a little flash - which was super easy to block." Yeah, people use to complain, loudly, about sites that allowed animated gif banner ads.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

> any internet user has to take care of their own privacy and anonymity. Easy to say, hard in practice when there's some really dodgy shit going on and given that most people don't actually (want to) dive into the subject, this isn't something that can apply to the modern age. I mean while I agree, you postulate some libertarian ideal - freedom for all on the internet. And while I agree, there's some scummy companies that take liberties with that - and when they have a data leak, it's your information that's out there, despite your own protection. I mean you could advise people to use an adblocker, but when said adblockers are exploited (so that advertisers can be unblocked if they pay a fee, mafia like schemes), or when the creator takes the money and hands over the code and effectively silently-auto-updating backdoor into the user's machine, they're fucked - not because of your best intentions, not because of their ignorance, but because something outside of their control. When there's a big government with the power to shut down companies looming over there telling people to not allow said breaches in the first place, you'll be better off.

a008t 8y ago
My main concern is that the big government will be used by big corporations with massive compliance and legal departments to shut down any emerging competition that refuses to be bought out.

apexalpha 8y ago

> Somehow, I feel like the old, unregulated internet was better. I wonder if that is just nostalgia or there is something to it. >With an unregulated internet, any internet user has to take care of their own privacy and anonymity. Barriers for entry for new websites and services are very low. Data breaches and abuses of data can lead to users being concerned about giving their data to tech monopolies, which can enable competition. How is this the 'old internet' and not still the current internet. With exeption maybe to the EU with GDPR now, this is what the internet is: everyone has to take care of their own privacy and anonimity. Barriers for entry for new website and services are lower than they've ever been. You don't even need your own hardware, just rent it. >Regulations like GDPR arguably make users complacent and lowers their guard, So according to this theory, people living outside GDPR territory, like the US, are less complacent regarding their data? Do you really think the _average_ American is less complacent than the average European? I hardly think so. >The internet was doing fine for decades with minimal involvement from governments - why change things? The internet was literally built by government(s). Why Change things? Because we are now finding out people are building massive databases with personal information, bought from small, medium and bigger websites who happily sold it without telling users they did. GDPR prevents this. How can I be 'less complacent' and 'have my guard up' if I don't even know that companies sell my data behind my back?

beaconstudios 8y ago
> How can I be 'less complacent' and 'have my guard up' if I don't even know that companies sell my data behind my back? By assuming they will, and taking steps to not provide your data to all and sundry. At the end of the day, companies can sell your data because they have it.
- apexalpha 8y ago
  >By assuming they will, and taking steps to not provide your data to all and sundry. At the end of the day, companies can sell your data because they have it. Okay I now assume that all companies will harvest as much data as they can. I will now take steps to prevent this. I am now offline and there is no way to know if they do.

gant 8y ago

that's some ancap crap if I ever heard some Facebook and co hire psychologists to make their data collection as painless and humanly possible, most of the time people only ever fully realise the extent of the data collected once they get pinpoint accurate ads, at which point they even resort to accusing facebook of listening to your conversations. The point is, the average person can't assess what exactly you can accomplish with the data you share. You might, but that's typical HN preaching from the ivory tower shit. Just because something works for you don't make it the best solution to everything.

a008t 8y ago
So then, one can advocate against the use of social media in general or Facebook in particular, (ironically) run targeted ads on these platforms to educate the users, etc. In truth, I think social media as we know it is on the way out anyway. The new generation will rebel against it, and might go back to writing hand-written letters to each other for all I know. I feel like giving these companies all this attention and treating them as "the new utilities" that are forever to stay here and must be regulated also psychologically cements their position as such.

prablenha 8y ago

The internet was fine before adtech and data hoarders. I don't know why you think this is the fault of the government. New things pop up and we need regulations to protect citizens.

bunderbunder 8y ago

> The internet was doing fine for decades Right, but then Eternal September happened. Nowadays, the vast, vast, vast majority of Internet users don't have the necessary background knowledge to understand how to protect their privacy online, and the people who do have that knowledge tend to concentrate into organizations that have a lot of financial incentive not to respect others' privacy.

BonesJustice 8y ago

> With an unregulated internet, any internet user has to take care of their own privacy and anonymity. Not really, because much of the information data brokers have about you comes from other people. Oh, your mom gave LinkedIn access to her contact list? Now they’ve got your phone number, mailing address, email address, a contact photo for facial recognition, and lord knows what else. Oh, your friend and confidant gave an app access to their text messages and email? Great, some data broker now has a copy of every email and text message sent between you. Hope there wasn’t anything private in there. The argument that you can somehow protect your own privacy on the internet rings hollow when it’s invaded without any action on your part.