3 ms·
What if the progression ends up being: 1. Publicly-funded font(s) created 2. Use on govt websites grows 3. Publicly-funded CDN used for said govt site assets
by ukulele 8y ago
What if the progression ends up being:
1. Publicly-funded font(s) created
2. Use on govt websites grows
3. Publicly-funded CDN used for said govt site assets
4. Other, non-govt sites use said font(s)
5. Govt becomes asset host for web basics across thousands of non-govt sites
This may be another step in CDN lifecycle of startup --> megacorp --> commoditization --> govt service.
- nathan_long 8y agoWhy would we go beyond step 2? As a taxpayer, I could buy the argument that the govt needs a new font, and that, having made one, it should make said font available for free so taxpayers can get the benefit. I don't see why my taxes should fund a public CDN, though.
- alvalentini 8y agoWhy not? It all depends on how important as an infrastructure CDNs will become. I know that in the States you prefer things to be privately held, but it's not too absurd imagining a future where CDNs are an essential and fundamental service to every day life for the vast majority of the population.
- yellowapple 8y agoIt's possible (probable, even) that the government would want to use a CDN for static assets (like fonts) for the same reasons that sufficiently-large private orgs would want to use a CDN for static assets. In that case, it's also possible (probable, even) that some particularly-lazily-developed smaller sites would simply point to those same CDNs instead of hosting things themselves (much like how quite a few sites point toward CDN-hosted versions of jQuery and FontAwesome and such). The only remaining step would then be for that taxpayer-funded CDN to cache any and all taxpayer-funded static assets.