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>monetized blogs I believe that we have the 'web' today because big decisions were made about how little control the end-user (i.e., consumer) should have over

>monetized blogs I believe that we have the 'web' today because big decisions were made about how little control the end-user (i.e., consumer) should have over the content made by producers, and that the #1 priority for all technology involved in the web has been to separate producer from consumer as stringently as possible. If we had the ability to safely and easily share a file that we create on our own local computer, using our own local computer, to any other computer in the world - we would have a nice balancing act of user-create content and world-wide consumption. Instead, we have walled gardens, and the very first part of the wall is the operating system running on the users computer - it is being twisted and contorted in such ways as to make it absolutely impossible for the average user (i.e. the computer owner/user) to easily share information. Instead, we have web clients and servers, and endless, endless 'services' that are all solving the same thing for their customers: organising documents in a way people can read them. And all the other things. And its all so commercial, because there is a huge gate in the way, and it is the OS Vendors. They are intentionally stratifying the market by making the barrier to entry - i.e. ones own computing device - untenable to serve the purpose. Imagine a universe where OS vendors didn't just give up to the web hackers, in the early days, and instead of making advertising platforms, pushed their OS to allow anyone, anywhere, to serve their documents to other people, easily, directly from their own system. I.e. we didn't have a client-/server age, but rather leaped immediately to peer-to-peer, because in this alternative universe, there were managers at places like Microsoft that could keep the old guard and the new young punks from battling with each other .. which is how we get this mess, incidentally. There really isn't any reason why we all have to meet at a single website and give our content away. We could each be sharing our own data directly from our own devices, if the OS were being designed in a way to allow it. We have the ability to make this happen - it has been intentionally thwarted in order to create crops. Give me a way to turn my own computer, whether it is a laptop or a server or my phone, into a safe and easy to use communications platform, and we'll get that content, created with love, back again. Its sort of happening, with things like IPFS, but you do have to go looking for the good stuff .. just like the good ol' days ..

Nasrudith 6y ago
The operating system isn't needed for that at all and blaming the vendors is fundamentally misplaced. That directly sending to other computers via direct IP connections is technically possible if you don't operate any firewalls or similiar to block it. And of course non-fixed and shared IP addresses would complicate the system. You would find out quickly why you don't actually want that when your own "unisystem" designated port server/client gets hammered with unsolicited requests and exploit attempts. Easy is a matter of interfaces although other design choices would come with costs. Safe however would be far harder. If you set it to a whitelist well you lose discoverability instantly.
- fit2rule 6y ago
  I don't agree with your point at all. I believe the vendors are fundamentally to blame for the situation with the web today .. the walled garden was intentionally created to protect the bigger consumers. And none of the issues you state as being the reason why we can't have nice things, are actually valid reasons. OS Vendors could solve the problem of serving content from ones own local PC's quite effectively - the issue is not the technology, but rather the ethics of the industry, which prefers to have massive fields of consumers to farm from..

Nasrudith 6y ago

The operating system isn't needed for that at all and blaming the vendors is fundamentally misplaced. That directly sending to other computers via direct IP connections is technically possible if you don't operate any firewalls or similiar to block it. And of course non-fixed and shared IP addresses would complicate the system. You would find out quickly why you don't actually want that when your own "unisystem" designated port server/client gets hammered with unsolicited requests and exploit attempts. Easy is a matter of interfaces although other design choices would come with costs. Safe however would be far harder. If you set it to a whitelist well you lose discoverability instantly.

fit2rule 6y ago
I don't agree with your point at all. I believe the vendors are fundamentally to blame for the situation with the web today .. the walled garden was intentionally created to protect the bigger consumers. And none of the issues you state as being the reason why we can't have nice things, are actually valid reasons. OS Vendors could solve the problem of serving content from ones own local PC's quite effectively - the issue is not the technology, but rather the ethics of the industry, which prefers to have massive fields of consumers to farm from..