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This is cool but it doesn’t address the elephant in the room: regular folk don’t care about any of this, they don’t care about the web being more closed and pri

This is cool but it doesn’t address the elephant in the room: regular folk don’t care about any of this, they don’t care about the web being more closed and privative or even having some of their rights trampled. So how do you get them to care? Or how do you offer enough value that they migrate to new systems and protocols?

SimeVidas 5y ago
Ad blockers are on the rise. DuckDucGo searches are on the rise. All browsers except Chrome are continuously getting better at protecting the user’s privacy. Global Privacy Control (GPC) is gaining traction. I think privacy on the web is already heading in a good direction.
- donkarma 5y ago
  They only care because it's very visible to them
- userbinator 5y ago
  All browsers except Chrome You mean Firefox? That's another problem, the lack of any real browser diversity.
  - SimeVidas 5y ago
    Safari, Firefox, Edge, and Samsung Internet are all quite popular.
    - sli 5y ago
      Edge and Samsung Internet are both still Chrome.
      - SimeVidas 5y ago
        Yes, but Microsoft and Samsung are adding privacy features to their browsers. Specifically, tracking protection. I can’t imagine Google adding tracking protection to Chrome. That’s the difference.
- shaoonb 5y ago
  All browsers except Chrome are continuously losing market share too.
  - SimeVidas 5y ago
    True, a few percent per year. Still, the combined effect of tracking protection in non-Chrome browsers is changing the web for the better, I think. For example, websites must deal with Safari’s tracking prevention because there’s no alternative on iOS, so Apple does have some control.
rektide 5y ago
worrying about everyone else is a losers game. worry about yourself & building the healthiest "local" community you can first. there's a lot of neat little networks that are active, that have a community. even if you are just connecting with other p2p, decentralized, whatever folk, & the whole world hasn't adopted your platform, so what? open source doesn't have to scale. start with what beautiful ideas you have.
pictur 5y ago
What will save the internet will probably be a project like the internet that millions of people can flock to at once. I love these kind of romantic articles, but I think they look at it from a romantic point of view.
- midasuni 5y ago
  Millions didn’t flock to the internet at once. People were trash talking Kirk vs Picard in 1987, they were be moaning Eternal September from 1993, in 1996 there was AOL for a few bleeding edge people, but the Internet was useful even with just 30 million people worldwide. even in 2000 the Internet was something Al Gore was waffling on about for the majority of even the western world. You don’t need to reach a billion people to be useful. Wikipedia didn’t have a billion users when it was first useful, nor did OSM, or slashdot, or alt.Wesley.crusher.die.die.die
enriquto 5y ago
Millions of people do already care. Why do you want most people to care? Honest question. It is a really serious concern, even if a majority does not directly think about it. Just like water pollution or fertilizer runoff. Essential stuff, that affects everybody, but there's no real need for everybody to care about it. I don't understand why you paint this as a an elephant in the room to address. Not all battles are won by swinging public opinion.
- arcturus17 5y ago
  Because what are ideas in technology without adoption? To your point, arguably not enough people have cared about climate issues for too long… It is only now that pressure is piling up on governments and corporations to change, and arguably it’s late and much remains to be done. Similarly, the trends towards a gated web described in the article continue to grow. I want more people to care because my rights and those of my loved ones are better protected if enough people care. I also want people to care because I prefer to develop open web products and services, and the more demand there is for them, the easier designers and developers in the space can make a living. Why would anyone not want more people to care?
- totetsu 5y ago
  because people don't even give out their phone number or email address anymore. And if your the person trying to tell them all the apps they use are bad and to install an app they've never heard of, then thats a big barrier to all kinds of social participation.
LAC-Tech 5y ago
> regular folk don’t care about any of this Regular people don't care about operating systems, yet many of us are able to have a superior desktop experience by using Linux. Regular people don't care about fine music, but we're still able to listen to Mussorgsky and are not forced to listen to Ariane Grande. Regular people don't care enough about technology to sit around discussing it in their spare time, and yet here we are. There's a lot of things that regular people don't care about. Let's concentrate on making something good, that enough people will use, rather than winning a popularity contest.
- dgb23 5y ago
  I very much agree with this sentiment. But given that, I don’t care about social platforms anymore. I don’t use FB since years, I use Signal with those who care, I visit reddit very irregularly since a while and twitter only if I get a link from someone outside of it. What I’m trying to say to say is that I find the whole model just not very compelling anymore, maybe even harmful. There are some subreddits that are more like forums (like this one) but the general experience is just not something I think is worth striving for, whether it is decentralized or not. What I do care about very much is communicating with interesting people and to read or watch interesting content. The signal to noise ratio is typically disappointing on these platforms.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  I agree. Fuck the regular folks! They are a cross upon our backs
- lioeters 5y ago
  That's the spirit! I'm glad someone is able to express this clearly. We need more people to be innovators and early adopters, to guide and consciously participate in the technology adoption life cycle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle
- semitones 5y ago
  For the desktop experience, or listening to music, that logic works well. But the network effect (winning the "popularity contest") is crucial for services that are much more network-dependent, i.e. what's being described in the article, or even hackernews (if there were only 100 people on this site we'd have much lower quality links/discussions)
ipaddr 5y ago
Regular folks are AOL users of the past. We never really wanted them on our sites because they were 'lame' and we were 'elite'. Why do we want them? They can't even edit an html page. That was the general feeling way back then. Fast forward 95% of the internet is made up of AOL users who primary use their phone and a few walled garden apps. Why would we want them to be part of the systems we are building that serve our needs? Not everyone needs to be part of a techie enclave on the internet. The barrier of walled garden can help us create an identity outside. Those ready to make the jump should be welcomed and onboarded. The difference from before and now is money. Everyone wants everyone together because it means more money. If you can live without the money a lot of cool projects and unique communities are possible.
- rektide 5y ago
  Part of me agrees but this is pretty vulgar & anti-populist. Perhaps thinking of the situation as an Overton window, a range of "normal" stances to tech, is more what this about than enclaves. I have another reply to parent despising a similar "do for ourselves" attitude, and I think that's capital, but there is a "follow the alpha geeks" aspect to tech too, for the good stuff hopefully does come down, does propogate, does spread. the Overton window of tech shifts, slowly, if new good self replicating practicing communities of tech are visibly doing better. right now I don't think anyone cares because there's so little apparent difference. but there's low visibility because it's so early, we're so new with our different social approaches, and few alternate approaches are radically compelling, few offer radically better features or better experience. I continue to think protocol based systems, as we stay getting good at them, will offer radical creativity& empowerment that classic big social can't it won't. and that's when we start changing hearts and minds, stay being highly visible, when we are empowered& leveraging it, when we are making our self determinism count. we are not there but we are getting better. what I want to underscore is, right now tech is a secret. there's all sorts of amazing people who would do amazing things of they were involved here. unlike Eternal September where Usenet got swamped with low nettiquette text, this is a chance to involve people: our designs are fast more egalitarian than fairly top-down Usenet. this is an onroad to upgrading yourself, a repersonalization of computing, to make it real & in front of you, rather than floating around on Zuck's servers. for sure a lot of people will go about, unchanged. and would bring semi questionable value to these alternative ecosystems. they one should still be served. two, we will have failed entirely if we don't lift some people up, open their eyes & excited their hearts, by properly prove them in touch with the communications engines of their lives.

SimeVidas 5y ago

Ad blockers are on the rise. DuckDucGo searches are on the rise. All browsers except Chrome are continuously getting better at protecting the user’s privacy. Global Privacy Control (GPC) is gaining traction. I think privacy on the web is already heading in a good direction.

donkarma 5y ago
They only care because it's very visible to them
userbinator 5y ago
All browsers except Chrome You mean Firefox? That's another problem, the lack of any real browser diversity.
- SimeVidas 5y ago
  Safari, Firefox, Edge, and Samsung Internet are all quite popular.
  - sli 5y ago
    Edge and Samsung Internet are both still Chrome.
    - SimeVidas 5y ago
      Yes, but Microsoft and Samsung are adding privacy features to their browsers. Specifically, tracking protection. I can’t imagine Google adding tracking protection to Chrome. That’s the difference.
shaoonb 5y ago
All browsers except Chrome are continuously losing market share too.
- SimeVidas 5y ago
  True, a few percent per year. Still, the combined effect of tracking protection in non-Chrome browsers is changing the web for the better, I think. For example, websites must deal with Safari’s tracking prevention because there’s no alternative on iOS, so Apple does have some control.

rektide 5y ago

worrying about everyone else is a losers game. worry about yourself & building the healthiest "local" community you can first. there's a lot of neat little networks that are active, that have a community. even if you are just connecting with other p2p, decentralized, whatever folk, & the whole world hasn't adopted your platform, so what? open source doesn't have to scale. start with what beautiful ideas you have.

pictur 5y ago

What will save the internet will probably be a project like the internet that millions of people can flock to at once. I love these kind of romantic articles, but I think they look at it from a romantic point of view.

midasuni 5y ago
Millions didn’t flock to the internet at once. People were trash talking Kirk vs Picard in 1987, they were be moaning Eternal September from 1993, in 1996 there was AOL for a few bleeding edge people, but the Internet was useful even with just 30 million people worldwide. even in 2000 the Internet was something Al Gore was waffling on about for the majority of even the western world. You don’t need to reach a billion people to be useful. Wikipedia didn’t have a billion users when it was first useful, nor did OSM, or slashdot, or alt.Wesley.crusher.die.die.die

enriquto 5y ago

Millions of people do already care. Why do you want most people to care? Honest question. It is a really serious concern, even if a majority does not directly think about it. Just like water pollution or fertilizer runoff. Essential stuff, that affects everybody, but there's no real need for everybody to care about it. I don't understand why you paint this as a an elephant in the room to address. Not all battles are won by swinging public opinion.

arcturus17 5y ago
Because what are ideas in technology without adoption? To your point, arguably not enough people have cared about climate issues for too long… It is only now that pressure is piling up on governments and corporations to change, and arguably it’s late and much remains to be done. Similarly, the trends towards a gated web described in the article continue to grow. I want more people to care because my rights and those of my loved ones are better protected if enough people care. I also want people to care because I prefer to develop open web products and services, and the more demand there is for them, the easier designers and developers in the space can make a living. Why would anyone not want more people to care?
totetsu 5y ago
because people don't even give out their phone number or email address anymore. And if your the person trying to tell them all the apps they use are bad and to install an app they've never heard of, then thats a big barrier to all kinds of social participation.

LAC-Tech 5y ago

> regular folk don’t care about any of this Regular people don't care about operating systems, yet many of us are able to have a superior desktop experience by using Linux. Regular people don't care about fine music, but we're still able to listen to Mussorgsky and are not forced to listen to Ariane Grande. Regular people don't care enough about technology to sit around discussing it in their spare time, and yet here we are. There's a lot of things that regular people don't care about. Let's concentrate on making something good, that enough people will use, rather than winning a popularity contest.

dgb23 5y ago
I very much agree with this sentiment. But given that, I don’t care about social platforms anymore. I don’t use FB since years, I use Signal with those who care, I visit reddit very irregularly since a while and twitter only if I get a link from someone outside of it. What I’m trying to say to say is that I find the whole model just not very compelling anymore, maybe even harmful. There are some subreddits that are more like forums (like this one) but the general experience is just not something I think is worth striving for, whether it is decentralized or not. What I do care about very much is communicating with interesting people and to read or watch interesting content. The signal to noise ratio is typically disappointing on these platforms.
tomc1985 5y ago
I agree. Fuck the regular folks! They are a cross upon our backs
lioeters 5y ago
That's the spirit! I'm glad someone is able to express this clearly. We need more people to be innovators and early adopters, to guide and consciously participate in the technology adoption life cycle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle
semitones 5y ago
For the desktop experience, or listening to music, that logic works well. But the network effect (winning the "popularity contest") is crucial for services that are much more network-dependent, i.e. what's being described in the article, or even hackernews (if there were only 100 people on this site we'd have much lower quality links/discussions)

ipaddr 5y ago

Regular folks are AOL users of the past. We never really wanted them on our sites because they were 'lame' and we were 'elite'. Why do we want them? They can't even edit an html page. That was the general feeling way back then. Fast forward 95% of the internet is made up of AOL users who primary use their phone and a few walled garden apps. Why would we want them to be part of the systems we are building that serve our needs? Not everyone needs to be part of a techie enclave on the internet. The barrier of walled garden can help us create an identity outside. Those ready to make the jump should be welcomed and onboarded. The difference from before and now is money. Everyone wants everyone together because it means more money. If you can live without the money a lot of cool projects and unique communities are possible.

rektide 5y ago
Part of me agrees but this is pretty vulgar & anti-populist. Perhaps thinking of the situation as an Overton window, a range of "normal" stances to tech, is more what this about than enclaves. I have another reply to parent despising a similar "do for ourselves" attitude, and I think that's capital, but there is a "follow the alpha geeks" aspect to tech too, for the good stuff hopefully does come down, does propogate, does spread. the Overton window of tech shifts, slowly, if new good self replicating practicing communities of tech are visibly doing better. right now I don't think anyone cares because there's so little apparent difference. but there's low visibility because it's so early, we're so new with our different social approaches, and few alternate approaches are radically compelling, few offer radically better features or better experience. I continue to think protocol based systems, as we stay getting good at them, will offer radical creativity& empowerment that classic big social can't it won't. and that's when we start changing hearts and minds, stay being highly visible, when we are empowered& leveraging it, when we are making our self determinism count. we are not there but we are getting better. what I want to underscore is, right now tech is a secret. there's all sorts of amazing people who would do amazing things of they were involved here. unlike Eternal September where Usenet got swamped with low nettiquette text, this is a chance to involve people: our designs are fast more egalitarian than fairly top-down Usenet. this is an onroad to upgrading yourself, a repersonalization of computing, to make it real & in front of you, rather than floating around on Zuck's servers. for sure a lot of people will go about, unchanged. and would bring semi questionable value to these alternative ecosystems. they one should still be served. two, we will have failed entirely if we don't lift some people up, open their eyes & excited their hearts, by properly prove them in touch with the communications engines of their lives.