4 ms·
We are at an impasse that can only be solved by data: how many unique users downloaded a document via an FTP URI in a web browser in a month? If I were a bettin
by billyhoffman 5y ago
We are at an impasse that can only be solved by data: how many unique users downloaded a document via an FTP URI in a web browser in a month? If I were a betting man, I'd wager it's less than the unique number of users who visited a webpage rendered using Hebrew, but we don't know.
Hopefully the browser makers will be transparent with this telemetry.
- kragen 5y agoPrecisely what I'm arguing is that we should stop destroying access to all information except the most popular—I'm astounded to find that you disagree! That is not an impasse that can be resolved by data. Popularity is not a valid measure of value. The July 02021 issue of People magazine sold 3 million copies, in a single month, and is almost completely devoid of value. (Maybe in 02068 it will provide valuable insights into vapid 02020s US popular culture.) Amazon tells me Claude Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communication is outsold by 185,210 other books at present, so perhaps it has sold 100 copies this month, but it is the foundation of data compression, error correction, and significant amounts of artificial intelligence work. One Hundred Years of Solitude has sold about 50 million copies—over the past 54 years, so perhaps it sells 80,000 copies a month, 40 times less than the July 02021 issue of People. (But probably less; it probably doesn't sell as much as it did 30 years ago.) 40:1 is more than the ratio between the number of HTTPS servers and the number of anonymous FTP servers.