3 ms·

I'm not referring to anything specific, just the general tendency for systems to change over time to match the preferences of the entities with the most influen

I'm not referring to anything specific, just the general tendency for systems to change over time to match the preferences of the entities with the most influence. Sometimes this is beneficial for others, sometimes it's detrimental. The point is that the evolution of the internet is now primarily selecting for what big tech wants. This is much more obvious with the web. Everyone uses Chromium, so the web as a standard is now effectively whatever Google decides it is. See Widevine. FWIW I don't see anything specific wrong with QUIC. I'm quite excited about it and think it will be good for the internet.

tialaramex 5y ago
But you could apply this vague feeling (that big companies change the world) to everything. Is it really Apple's Donald Trump presidency? Google's Democratic Backsliding and Facebook's Climate Change? I don't think it's useful to distinguish "big tech" in this regard from say, the Military Industrial Complex's outsize influence on our world, or the way Malls bulldozed America's distinctive local businesses, or the way Hollywood decides how much of the world imagines things. And I especially don't see value in assigning them name ownership of things that were done by large numbers of individuals working together just because it so happens that you find it easier to remember "Google" than say Jana Iyengar or Martin Thomson (editors of QUIC, neither of whom work for Google). Unlike the W3C corporations can't actually participate in the IETF, which is a human activity and so is done by humans. Corporations can, and do, pay their employees to participate, but everybody is welcome and, as outfits like EDCO discovered, just flooding the IETF with bodies doesn't achieve anything except make you look stupid. (EDCO wanted TLS 1.3 to have defective encryption because it would be easier than doing their jobs properly).
- anderspitman 5y ago
  These are fair points, and I appreciate you pointing out that the IETF has a pretty dang good process. But do you think if QUIC wasn't exactly what they wanted, Google would have signed off on it? I don't think so. I think they would have kept using SPDY. So I don't see much difference between QUIC coming from the IETF or Google itself, since I'm assuming the final output artifact is the same. At the end of the day all I'm trying to say is we should be wary of the tech choices of big companies. Most websites probably don't need HTTP/2+, a CDN, etc, and the complexity that comes with it. Most startups probably don't need microservices. Most web apps probably don't need more than Mithril.js (or HTML forms for that matter). I'm not arguing against things existing or being good, just that it's important to be cautious buying in wholesale and assuming the way large companies do things is the way everyone should do things. If you're not careful you can end up in a place where the simple option is no longer available. For example it's basically impossible to make a web browser with a small team now. I'm excited about HTTP/3 as long as they don't try to take HTTP/1.1 away from me.
  - anderspitman 5y ago
    Oops *gQUIC not SPDY.

tialaramex 5y ago

But you could apply this vague feeling (that big companies change the world) to everything. Is it really Apple's Donald Trump presidency? Google's Democratic Backsliding and Facebook's Climate Change? I don't think it's useful to distinguish "big tech" in this regard from say, the Military Industrial Complex's outsize influence on our world, or the way Malls bulldozed America's distinctive local businesses, or the way Hollywood decides how much of the world imagines things. And I especially don't see value in assigning them name ownership of things that were done by large numbers of individuals working together just because it so happens that you find it easier to remember "Google" than say Jana Iyengar or Martin Thomson (editors of QUIC, neither of whom work for Google). Unlike the W3C corporations can't actually participate in the IETF, which is a human activity and so is done by humans. Corporations can, and do, pay their employees to participate, but everybody is welcome and, as outfits like EDCO discovered, just flooding the IETF with bodies doesn't achieve anything except make you look stupid. (EDCO wanted TLS 1.3 to have defective encryption because it would be easier than doing their jobs properly).

anderspitman 5y ago
These are fair points, and I appreciate you pointing out that the IETF has a pretty dang good process. But do you think if QUIC wasn't exactly what they wanted, Google would have signed off on it? I don't think so. I think they would have kept using SPDY. So I don't see much difference between QUIC coming from the IETF or Google itself, since I'm assuming the final output artifact is the same. At the end of the day all I'm trying to say is we should be wary of the tech choices of big companies. Most websites probably don't need HTTP/2+, a CDN, etc, and the complexity that comes with it. Most startups probably don't need microservices. Most web apps probably don't need more than Mithril.js (or HTML forms for that matter). I'm not arguing against things existing or being good, just that it's important to be cautious buying in wholesale and assuming the way large companies do things is the way everyone should do things. If you're not careful you can end up in a place where the simple option is no longer available. For example it's basically impossible to make a web browser with a small team now. I'm excited about HTTP/3 as long as they don't try to take HTTP/1.1 away from me.
- anderspitman 5y ago
  Oops *gQUIC not SPDY.