4 ms·

Having no URLs clickable as hyperlinks is the literal antithesis of the web.

by iamtedd 4y ago

houzi 4y ago
You're consuming the content in a browser, when it's supposed to be consumed by an RSS reader.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- iamtedd 4y ago
  The page published to HN is meant to be viewed on a browser, as it is the introduction for the website, explaining its intended use. Also, I'm sure many RSS readers do not automatically recognise URLs and make them clickable. Edit: Another point being they're literally calling it a website.
  - krapp 4y ago
    In today's modern age of always-active surveillance, cancel culture and advertising, clickable URLs seem harmful. They can be logged, tracked and profiled. And most URLs are spam anyway, meaning most clickable links on the web are actively malicious. Just observe how few people on HN are even willing to click on links submitted to HN. At worst, you're taking your life into your own hands, at best you're probably just wasting your time on clickbait. Making links clickable also forces the user to use browser or browser-adjacent tools of near infinite complexity, all of which are owned by surveillance and advertising megacorps associated with the American military industrial complex. By only having bare URLS in plaintext, I can use any tools I want to process them in any way I choose. Those tools can all be simple and free. Maybe it's best that we be done with hypertext altogether. Clickable links were the original sin of the web. Maybe they were a good idea decades ago, in the naive cypherpunk days of the early web, but now they just provide another way to feed the panopticon, and form the basis for all of the unnecessary complexity, dark patterns and bloat in the modern web. Maybe we should just go back to plaintext and open directories.
    - atoav 4y ago
      So instead of banning dark pattern you'd rather turn the web into a stack of papers?
      - krapp 4y ago
        What better way to ban dark patterns than making "patterns" altogether infeasible? Why assume trust in a model already proven untrustworthy? Too much of the web is built on an honor system as it is. Structure begets hierarchy begets conformity begets tyranny. Eliminate structure from the web and tyranny over the web can't emerge.
        formerkrogemp 4y ago
        I have a solution to our expensive computer problems! Blow up all of the computers! Boom. No more computer problems.
      - _dave 4y ago
        Welcome to the Gopher/Gemini mindset, thinking technological restrictions can solve a policy problem.
      - marssaxman 4y ago
        With what magic wand do you propose to enact this ban?
    - Angostura 4y ago
      Wait until you find out about IP addresses.
      - krapp 4y ago
        Unfortunately, IP addresses are unavoidable but we can at least minimize the damage they do to privacy.
    - ctxc 4y ago
      Fancy words, but would it even be...an open, accessible web making differences in the lives of billions? All mobile carriers in my country (or any, I'm guessing) go to great lengths to extract every last penny from my call plans. Should we go back to letters then?
- cyanydeez 4y ago
  I have never understood or found a rss reader. I assume the tech will die before it ever becomes an imperative.
antonvs 4y ago
Hipsters gonna hipster
kkfx 4y ago
Well, website is a wrong name, the correct would be RSSSite, something easy to follow from a personal aggregator, witch happen to be a classic feed reader. Doing so means: - you can select a moderately large set of sources (depending on how much posts are published and how much you read) and see the aggregated by YOURS criteria on YOURS own local machine, no propaganda from some giant can tweak your sources hiding something or pushing something in your "view"; - you can keep anything you feel relevant locally, depending on your reader with a single click and full contents, fully searchable/tagable/sharable etc no dependence on "web archive services" that might disappear or even get silently tweaked to change the history; - you can organize your view of human information depending on your tastes, run your own statistics, analysis etc to form your own personal knowledge out of someone else published ones. The above is the key toward a free information for a free society, depending on third parties doing something equivalent, like Google News, means being at the third party mercy since such hoster can push you toward certain contents hiding certain others with criteria you do not control. At a scale means classic full-fledged dictatorship propaganda because while freedom of publishing is still there nearly no one can reach "unwanted by big&powerful contents" since access is via aggregators and search engines. That's why we need classic mail, usenet and RSS: because no one can control them at a whole level. They are decentralized services anyone can control just a personal slice.

Having no URLs clickable as hyperlinks is the literal antithesis of the web.

houzi 4y ago

You're consuming the content in a browser, when it's supposed to be consumed by an RSS reader.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
iamtedd 4y ago
The page published to HN is meant to be viewed on a browser, as it is the introduction for the website, explaining its intended use. Also, I'm sure many RSS readers do not automatically recognise URLs and make them clickable. Edit: Another point being they're literally calling it a website.
- krapp 4y ago
  In today's modern age of always-active surveillance, cancel culture and advertising, clickable URLs seem harmful. They can be logged, tracked and profiled. And most URLs are spam anyway, meaning most clickable links on the web are actively malicious. Just observe how few people on HN are even willing to click on links submitted to HN. At worst, you're taking your life into your own hands, at best you're probably just wasting your time on clickbait. Making links clickable also forces the user to use browser or browser-adjacent tools of near infinite complexity, all of which are owned by surveillance and advertising megacorps associated with the American military industrial complex. By only having bare URLS in plaintext, I can use any tools I want to process them in any way I choose. Those tools can all be simple and free. Maybe it's best that we be done with hypertext altogether. Clickable links were the original sin of the web. Maybe they were a good idea decades ago, in the naive cypherpunk days of the early web, but now they just provide another way to feed the panopticon, and form the basis for all of the unnecessary complexity, dark patterns and bloat in the modern web. Maybe we should just go back to plaintext and open directories.
  - atoav 4y ago
    So instead of banning dark pattern you'd rather turn the web into a stack of papers?
    - krapp 4y ago
      What better way to ban dark patterns than making "patterns" altogether infeasible? Why assume trust in a model already proven untrustworthy? Too much of the web is built on an honor system as it is. Structure begets hierarchy begets conformity begets tyranny. Eliminate structure from the web and tyranny over the web can't emerge.
      - formerkrogemp 4y ago
        I have a solution to our expensive computer problems! Blow up all of the computers! Boom. No more computer problems.
    - _dave 4y ago
      Welcome to the Gopher/Gemini mindset, thinking technological restrictions can solve a policy problem.
    - marssaxman 4y ago
      With what magic wand do you propose to enact this ban?
  - Angostura 4y ago
    Wait until you find out about IP addresses.
    - krapp 4y ago
      Unfortunately, IP addresses are unavoidable but we can at least minimize the damage they do to privacy.
  - ctxc 4y ago
    Fancy words, but would it even be...an open, accessible web making differences in the lives of billions? All mobile carriers in my country (or any, I'm guessing) go to great lengths to extract every last penny from my call plans. Should we go back to letters then?
cyanydeez 4y ago
I have never understood or found a rss reader. I assume the tech will die before it ever becomes an imperative.

antonvs 4y ago

Hipsters gonna hipster

kkfx 4y ago

Well, website is a wrong name, the correct would be RSSSite, something easy to follow from a personal aggregator, witch happen to be a classic feed reader. Doing so means: - you can select a moderately large set of sources (depending on how much posts are published and how much you read) and see the aggregated by YOURS criteria on YOURS own local machine, no propaganda from some giant can tweak your sources hiding something or pushing something in your "view"; - you can keep anything you feel relevant locally, depending on your reader with a single click and full contents, fully searchable/tagable/sharable etc no dependence on "web archive services" that might disappear or even get silently tweaked to change the history; - you can organize your view of human information depending on your tastes, run your own statistics, analysis etc to form your own personal knowledge out of someone else published ones. The above is the key toward a free information for a free society, depending on third parties doing something equivalent, like Google News, means being at the third party mercy since such hoster can push you toward certain contents hiding certain others with criteria you do not control. At a scale means classic full-fledged dictatorship propaganda because while freedom of publishing is still there nearly no one can reach "unwanted by big&powerful contents" since access is via aggregators and search engines. That's why we need classic mail, usenet and RSS: because no one can control them at a whole level. They are decentralized services anyone can control just a personal slice.