3 ms·

Centralization goess against the ethos of www. It was supposed to desintermediate interactions yet we ended up with monopolies.

pb7 6y ago
It's aggregation at most, not centralization. Hacker News and Reddit are also aggregators -- the content still exists elsewhere and can be accessed directly with ease.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  They can be but they aren’t, users are staying on FB et al. How does this get fixed?
  - michaelmrose 6y ago
    People not doing what you wish they would isn't a defect.
- parthdesai 6y ago
  You don't require an account to view/access Hacker News and Reddit's content.
  - pb7 6y ago
    Is that the issue? An account is required because the Facebook feed is largely dictated by who you're friends with. It's not based on a public popularity contest like Hacker News and Reddit. I'm not sure I follow.
- iamacyborg 6y ago
  It's hard to make this argument when Google are centralising features like Google Shopping, flight comparisons, "knowledge box" etc.
madeofpalk 6y ago
This might be a fair point, but it seems unrelated.
- fabianhjr 6y ago
  There are no "good guys" in this, neither the publishers nor Facebook, and we all lose from this petty fight.
dexen 6y ago
>Centralization goess against the ethos of www A very good contention. Goes to bolster opposition to any link tax. Note that having to negotiate extra surcharge with news publishers would make online even harder for smaller, independent websites, and (relatively) easier for large platforms. A link tax incentivizes centralization. And the current excuse of "only large platform" is just that - an excuse, easily changed with a stroke of a legislative pen, once the precedent of link tax is established.
- fabianhjr 6y ago
  Yeah though my point is more that this is a petty fight between monopolistic entities (Facebook and publishers) and we ended up losing regardless.
- manicdee 6y ago
  Noting that decentralisation requires a lot of effort, otherwise monopoly is a natural outcome in any competitive field. So regardless of the egalitarian ethos of the Web, the natural result of leaving the environment to invent itself is that there will be one search engine that basically everybody uses, one social network that basically everybody uses (and that one network might change from generation to generation).

pb7 6y ago

It's aggregation at most, not centralization. Hacker News and Reddit are also aggregators -- the content still exists elsewhere and can be accessed directly with ease.

lostlogin 6y ago
They can be but they aren’t, users are staying on FB et al. How does this get fixed?
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  People not doing what you wish they would isn't a defect.
parthdesai 6y ago
You don't require an account to view/access Hacker News and Reddit's content.
- pb7 6y ago
  Is that the issue? An account is required because the Facebook feed is largely dictated by who you're friends with. It's not based on a public popularity contest like Hacker News and Reddit. I'm not sure I follow.
iamacyborg 6y ago
It's hard to make this argument when Google are centralising features like Google Shopping, flight comparisons, "knowledge box" etc.

madeofpalk 6y ago

This might be a fair point, but it seems unrelated.

fabianhjr 6y ago
There are no "good guys" in this, neither the publishers nor Facebook, and we all lose from this petty fight.

dexen 6y ago

>Centralization goess against the ethos of www A very good contention. Goes to bolster opposition to any link tax. Note that having to negotiate extra surcharge with news publishers would make online even harder for smaller, independent websites, and (relatively) easier for large platforms. A link tax incentivizes centralization. And the current excuse of "only large platform" is just that - an excuse, easily changed with a stroke of a legislative pen, once the precedent of link tax is established.

fabianhjr 6y ago
Yeah though my point is more that this is a petty fight between monopolistic entities (Facebook and publishers) and we ended up losing regardless.
manicdee 6y ago
Noting that decentralisation requires a lot of effort, otherwise monopoly is a natural outcome in any competitive field. So regardless of the egalitarian ethos of the Web, the natural result of leaving the environment to invent itself is that there will be one search engine that basically everybody uses, one social network that basically everybody uses (and that one network might change from generation to generation).