5 ms·

Maybe it's just me but why do we have to make the web about other people making money? In the 90s there were plenty of websites ran by hobbyists and amateurs an

Maybe it's just me but why do we have to make the web about other people making money? In the 90s there were plenty of websites ran by hobbyists and amateurs and even professionals who did it for the joy of their craft and even today there are loads. Maybe I am being overly harsh but are we saying that a browser like Brave is required these days? I don't think the web would be worse-off if all commercial sites disappeared: There will still be enough hobbyists, amateurs and pro's with $10-a-month blogs to provide whatever information I need. For those that have more in depth content, videos, films and so on we already have subscription models for those and I can pick and choose what I want (I don't subscribe to anything other than Pluralsight tbh). Why do we have to assume that every site on the web is a commercial entity with staff and overheads and that the web will collapse if we don't allow adverts? The web worked perfectly well without all this tracking and abuse and by using browsers like Brave we are saying that we are ok with it.

user812 8y ago
Who is this "we" you are talking about? It's not like the web/society consists of one collectivist "blob" that speaks in unison.
- _Understated_ 8y ago
  "We" is merely a term to denote "users" in general: I'm not saying we all think alike but I do believe that "we" as web users have a choice to make. Do we want a web where everything is gated and requires micropayments or would we rather use the web without tracking and micropayments?
tomhoward 8y ago
There's a pretty hard limit to the volume and style of content that can be produced by amateurs and hobbyists. For a start, it's limited to people who are already rich enough to have the time to spare. But certain types of content - deep investigative journalism for example - should always cost significant amounts of money. You want the best people in the world at that craft to be able to spend as long as takes, and travel to wherever they need to go, to uncover the truth in a story. This kind of work plays a crucial role in society, by keeping a watch on the political, legal and corporate worlds and helping to expose corruption and abuses of power. It's likely already the case that too little good investigative journalism is being done these days. We should be looking for ways to have more of it, not less.

user812 8y ago

Who is this "we" you are talking about? It's not like the web/society consists of one collectivist "blob" that speaks in unison.

_Understated_ 8y ago
"We" is merely a term to denote "users" in general: I'm not saying we all think alike but I do believe that "we" as web users have a choice to make. Do we want a web where everything is gated and requires micropayments or would we rather use the web without tracking and micropayments?

tomhoward 8y ago

There's a pretty hard limit to the volume and style of content that can be produced by amateurs and hobbyists. For a start, it's limited to people who are already rich enough to have the time to spare. But certain types of content - deep investigative journalism for example - should always cost significant amounts of money. You want the best people in the world at that craft to be able to spend as long as takes, and travel to wherever they need to go, to uncover the truth in a story. This kind of work plays a crucial role in society, by keeping a watch on the political, legal and corporate worlds and helping to expose corruption and abuses of power. It's likely already the case that too little good investigative journalism is being done these days. We should be looking for ways to have more of it, not less.