7 ms·

The web is free because companies are profiting off your data. In no way has server costs ever been free.

martin_a 5y ago
That is over-simplified. The web is also free because I can use it to promote myself and my work by writing articles, posting images, doing whatever I like. I'm willing to pay the hosting fees for that and it's my decision not to pass this on to any visitors.
- nowherebeen 5y ago
  > I'm willing to pay the hosting fees for that and it's my decision not to pass this on to any visitors. You are willing to pay hosting fees. But do you pay for Gmail, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and a whole host of other platforms that the majority of the population uses? Remind me how companies that have billions of users pay for it? How many people are going to visit your website compares to theirs? How much do people like you contribute to the entire revenue stream? The creator economy is tiny compared to these platforms.
  - elzbardico 5y ago
    The same way we never paid for open tv or even the true cost of newspapers and magazines. Advertising.
marginalia_nu 5y ago
To be fair, if you hook up a raspberry pi or some random old laptop to the web you can serve a significant amount of traffic as long you mind how you construct your website. You don't need to rent hosting.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ericls 5y ago
If the web if kept free then there are other groups of companies or "communities" that are profiting off your data.In no way has server costs ever been free.
knowledge-clay 5y ago
Servers are cheap and computers are fast. This site appears to be hosted on Neocities: a platform with a generous free tier that doesn't profit off user data.
- nowherebeen 5y ago
  If you are operating a small website, sure. Most business aren’t. How does Neocities earn money if no one is footing the bill? Free tiers are a marketing strategy, not a business model.
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    There really is no reason businesses need to run colossal bloated websites. That's mostly the result of technical ignorance from business owners. No ignorance is inevitable.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    If your business is growing beyond Neocities, then you're likely profitable enough to pay for a $5 WordPress VPS.
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  Cheap is not free. People are putting in the work on Neocities to make sure the platform stays up, reachable, and free of abuse. There's regular stories of open-source maintainers burning out due to the support burden. If you're not paying for the service, then the service owners will raise money some other way or stop offering the service. Today, that way is ads and data mining.
Bancakes 5y ago
A big thanks to all the useful i**ots who fall for the ads and marketing.
pornel 5y ago
Waste-maximizing mining farms only add to the cost (before you say "PoS": the model of a plutocratic oligarchy that can further concentrate their wealth by taxing all transactions doesn't sound cheap either). Cost of hosting and bandwidth is asymptotically approaching zero. For most things it can be easily subsidized with pocket change. For bigger things, the pre-tollbooth-on-everything Web has already figured out Bittorrent and p2p protocols where basically the receiver pays/subsidizes it through their ISP.
- nowherebeen 5y ago
  > the model of a plutocratic oligarchy that can further concentrate their wealth by taxing all transactions doesn't sound cheap either How is that different from what banks do right now for all your transactions? It's the exact same and owned by Wall Street oligarchy (Morgan Stanley, Goldman, BoA, Citibank, etc). The only difference is that you can't reverse the transaction. As for the rest of your argument, I agree; although, idealistic and unlikely. I simply found it ludicrous that author thought the internet is powered by fairy dust.
  - pornel 5y ago
    In EU countries many fees are regulated and have caps. For example, debit card interchange fee is max 0.2%. In the real world rich are getting richer and use their wealth to gain even more control too. But in a PoS system this is not a bug, but the core mechanic of the system. You can't even make a PoS system that is even slightly egalitarian, because then a "rich" wallet could be split into many "poor" sockpuppet ones and gain even more influence.

That is over-simplified. The web is also free because I can use it to promote myself and my work by writing articles, posting images, doing whatever I like. I'm willing to pay the hosting fees for that and it's my decision not to pass this on to any visitors.

nowherebeen 5y ago
> I'm willing to pay the hosting fees for that and it's my decision not to pass this on to any visitors. You are willing to pay hosting fees. But do you pay for Gmail, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and a whole host of other platforms that the majority of the population uses? Remind me how companies that have billions of users pay for it? How many people are going to visit your website compares to theirs? How much do people like you contribute to the entire revenue stream? The creator economy is tiny compared to these platforms.
- elzbardico 5y ago
  The same way we never paid for open tv or even the true cost of newspapers and magazines. Advertising.

marginalia_nu 5y ago

To be fair, if you hook up a raspberry pi or some random old laptop to the web you can serve a significant amount of traffic as long you mind how you construct your website. You don't need to rent hosting.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ericls 5y ago

If the web if kept free then there are other groups of companies or "communities" that are profiting off your data.In no way has server costs ever been free.

knowledge-clay 5y ago

Servers are cheap and computers are fast. This site appears to be hosted on Neocities: a platform with a generous free tier that doesn't profit off user data.

nowherebeen 5y ago
If you are operating a small website, sure. Most business aren’t. How does Neocities earn money if no one is footing the bill? Free tiers are a marketing strategy, not a business model.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  There really is no reason businesses need to run colossal bloated websites. That's mostly the result of technical ignorance from business owners. No ignorance is inevitable.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  If your business is growing beyond Neocities, then you're likely profitable enough to pay for a $5 WordPress VPS.
Karrot_Kream 5y ago
Cheap is not free. People are putting in the work on Neocities to make sure the platform stays up, reachable, and free of abuse. There's regular stories of open-source maintainers burning out due to the support burden. If you're not paying for the service, then the service owners will raise money some other way or stop offering the service. Today, that way is ads and data mining.

Bancakes 5y ago

A big thanks to all the useful i**ots who fall for the ads and marketing.

pornel 5y ago

Waste-maximizing mining farms only add to the cost (before you say "PoS": the model of a plutocratic oligarchy that can further concentrate their wealth by taxing all transactions doesn't sound cheap either). Cost of hosting and bandwidth is asymptotically approaching zero. For most things it can be easily subsidized with pocket change. For bigger things, the pre-tollbooth-on-everything Web has already figured out Bittorrent and p2p protocols where basically the receiver pays/subsidizes it through their ISP.

nowherebeen 5y ago
> the model of a plutocratic oligarchy that can further concentrate their wealth by taxing all transactions doesn't sound cheap either How is that different from what banks do right now for all your transactions? It's the exact same and owned by Wall Street oligarchy (Morgan Stanley, Goldman, BoA, Citibank, etc). The only difference is that you can't reverse the transaction. As for the rest of your argument, I agree; although, idealistic and unlikely. I simply found it ludicrous that author thought the internet is powered by fairy dust.
- pornel 5y ago
  In EU countries many fees are regulated and have caps. For example, debit card interchange fee is max 0.2%. In the real world rich are getting richer and use their wealth to gain even more control too. But in a PoS system this is not a bug, but the core mechanic of the system. You can't even make a PoS system that is even slightly egalitarian, because then a "rich" wallet could be split into many "poor" sockpuppet ones and gain even more influence.