4 ms·

Don't hold your breath. Ad tech is what keeps the internet free. You might be willing to pay for content to keep from getting tracked, but consider the billions

by twox2 7y ago

Don't hold your breath. Ad tech is what keeps the internet free. You might be willing to pay for content to keep from getting tracked, but consider the billions of folks out there that can barely afford to get online in the first place.

AlanSE 7y ago
What content do you feel like we will miss out on? Genuine question. Clearly, Wikipedia would keep operating. Universities would continue to operate web presence, but their highest quality content (academic papers) is already paywalled. As for news, there's a spectrum. There is news about global events, and then there is news about entertainment. Entertainment, itself, (Netflix, Hulu) is already paywalled.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Fund publishing as a public good.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  Publishing of what? Public funding of publishing isn't a complete non-starter, and can work very well in narrow cases, but there are serious problems involved in the state spinning up an infrastructure where it decides what speech in general is worthy of state funding. It's disheartening to see how common it is to see people throw out a vague "make the gov't do it" without acknowledging or grappling with the deep fundamental questions about how this would be implemented.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Publishing of everything generally public. "To publish" is literally "to make public": https://www.etymonline.com/word/publish https://www.etymonline.com/word/publish I'm aware this is an uphill battle. It may well be a hill I choose to die on. For further thoughts / arguments: Many of the arguments for Sci-Hub generalise to all information. This piece also specifically invokes the arguments of the CUNY Graduate Center and Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel laureate economist) on information as a public good: "What the academic publishing industry calls "theft" the world calls "research": Why Sci-Hub is so popular" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4p2rwk/what_the_academic_publishing_industry_calls_theft/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4p2rwk/what_th... Generally: "Why Information Goods and Markets are a Poor Match" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2vm2da/why_information_goods_and_markets_are_a_poor_match/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2vm2da/why_inf... "The Medium Is the Message: how the technological and revenue environments shape content" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/278e2o/the_medium_is_the_message_how_the_technological/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/278e2o/the_med... "Forbes asks: Why do programmers hate advertising so much?" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/24107v/forbes_asks_why_do_programmers_hate_advertising/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/24107v/forbes_... "A Modest Proposal: Universal Online Media Payment Syndication" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uotb3/a_modest_proposal_universal_online_media_payment/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uotb3/a_modes... "Specifying a Universal Online Media Payment Syndication System" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2h0h81/specifying_a_universal_online_media_payment/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2h0h81/specify... "Richard Stallman's "Internet Sharing" content syndication proposal (2012)" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3p0bp6/richard_stallmans_internet_sharing_content/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3p0bp6/richard... https://stallman.org/articles/internet-sharing-license.en.html https://stallman.org/articles/internet-sharing-license.en.ht... A general problem of advertising, not otherwise addressed, is that it tends to produce shit content. Though this essay doesn't directly address that, it's very much a Tyranny of the Minimum Viable User dynamic: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyranny_of_the_minimum_viable_user/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyr... Another is that advertising tends strongly toward oppressive rather than liberating informational regimes: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6b32jo/what_makes_an_information_regime_oppressive_vs/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6b32jo/what_ma... And problems with other proposed payment alternatives, such as micropayments: "Repudiation as the micropayments killer feature (Not)" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4r683b/repudiation_as_the_micropayments_killer_feature/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4r683b/repudia... A general bibliography on publishing and media: "Media, Advertising, Sustainability, Externalities, and Impacts: A light reading list" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_advertising_sustainability_externalities/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_a... TL;DR: I've been thinking about this for a while. Mind: getting to public goods payment is going to be difficult. I don't deny that in the least. Partial approaches may well be a viable path there. Sci-Hub, ZLibrary, Library Genesis, the Internet Archive, libraries (public, offline, online), file-sharing, samizdat press, #pdfme, and other measures are appropriate. And "how do authors/creators" get paid: UBI/GMI would be a good start. Performance/lectures are an option. Publishing-as-a-shingle (in the professional advertising sense) is an option. Patronage and grants are presently used and have a long and storied history. As discussed in the essays above, both technology and business model effect the forms and types of works created. Advertising has been tried and found wanting.
asdff 7y ago
It didn't have to be that way. I wish hosting was something that was completely free for creators, funded by a % of the visiting user's monthly bill from their ISP. If you get a lot of views, you therefore get a lot of resources. Everything scales and maybe you don't have to rely on stalking people online and exploiting psychology to make people loose money and/or health.

by twox2 7y ago

AlanSE 7y ago

What content do you feel like we will miss out on? Genuine question. Clearly, Wikipedia would keep operating. Universities would continue to operate web presence, but their highest quality content (academic papers) is already paywalled. As for news, there's a spectrum. There is news about global events, and then there is news about entertainment. Entertainment, itself, (Netflix, Hulu) is already paywalled.

dredmorbius 7y ago

Fund publishing as a public good.

wutbrodo 7y ago
Publishing of what? Public funding of publishing isn't a complete non-starter, and can work very well in narrow cases, but there are serious problems involved in the state spinning up an infrastructure where it decides what speech in general is worthy of state funding. It's disheartening to see how common it is to see people throw out a vague "make the gov't do it" without acknowledging or grappling with the deep fundamental questions about how this would be implemented.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Publishing of everything generally public. "To publish" is literally "to make public": https://www.etymonline.com/word/publish https://www.etymonline.com/word/publish I'm aware this is an uphill battle. It may well be a hill I choose to die on. For further thoughts / arguments: Many of the arguments for Sci-Hub generalise to all information. This piece also specifically invokes the arguments of the CUNY Graduate Center and Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel laureate economist) on information as a public good: "What the academic publishing industry calls "theft" the world calls "research": Why Sci-Hub is so popular" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4p2rwk/what_the_academic_publishing_industry_calls_theft/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4p2rwk/what_th... Generally: "Why Information Goods and Markets are a Poor Match" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2vm2da/why_information_goods_and_markets_are_a_poor_match/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2vm2da/why_inf... "The Medium Is the Message: how the technological and revenue environments shape content" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/278e2o/the_medium_is_the_message_how_the_technological/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/278e2o/the_med... "Forbes asks: Why do programmers hate advertising so much?" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/24107v/forbes_asks_why_do_programmers_hate_advertising/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/24107v/forbes_... "A Modest Proposal: Universal Online Media Payment Syndication" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uotb3/a_modest_proposal_universal_online_media_payment/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uotb3/a_modes... "Specifying a Universal Online Media Payment Syndication System" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2h0h81/specifying_a_universal_online_media_payment/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2h0h81/specify... "Richard Stallman's "Internet Sharing" content syndication proposal (2012)" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3p0bp6/richard_stallmans_internet_sharing_content/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3p0bp6/richard... https://stallman.org/articles/internet-sharing-license.en.html https://stallman.org/articles/internet-sharing-license.en.ht... A general problem of advertising, not otherwise addressed, is that it tends to produce shit content. Though this essay doesn't directly address that, it's very much a Tyranny of the Minimum Viable User dynamic: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyranny_of_the_minimum_viable_user/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyr... Another is that advertising tends strongly toward oppressive rather than liberating informational regimes: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6b32jo/what_makes_an_information_regime_oppressive_vs/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6b32jo/what_ma... And problems with other proposed payment alternatives, such as micropayments: "Repudiation as the micropayments killer feature (Not)" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4r683b/repudiation_as_the_micropayments_killer_feature/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4r683b/repudia... A general bibliography on publishing and media: "Media, Advertising, Sustainability, Externalities, and Impacts: A light reading list" https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_advertising_sustainability_externalities/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_a... TL;DR: I've been thinking about this for a while. Mind: getting to public goods payment is going to be difficult. I don't deny that in the least. Partial approaches may well be a viable path there. Sci-Hub, ZLibrary, Library Genesis, the Internet Archive, libraries (public, offline, online), file-sharing, samizdat press, #pdfme, and other measures are appropriate. And "how do authors/creators" get paid: UBI/GMI would be a good start. Performance/lectures are an option. Publishing-as-a-shingle (in the professional advertising sense) is an option. Patronage and grants are presently used and have a long and storied history. As discussed in the essays above, both technology and business model effect the forms and types of works created. Advertising has been tried and found wanting.

asdff 7y ago

It didn't have to be that way. I wish hosting was something that was completely free for creators, funded by a % of the visiting user's monthly bill from their ISP. If you get a lot of views, you therefore get a lot of resources. Everything scales and maybe you don't have to rely on stalking people online and exploiting psychology to make people loose money and/or health.