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DNS is the public town square: when using browsers, navigating across domains, we are all fundamentally gathered in the DNS space. Me having "foo.com" is akin t

DNS is the public town square: when using browsers, navigating across domains, we are all fundamentally gathered in the DNS space. Me having "foo.com" is akin to setting up a stall in this public town square and selling my vegetables, and you are free to visit "foo.com" and buy into my ideology, or simply never visit it. And yes, precisely, "foo.com", or "twitter.com", or "tiktok.com", cannot, by definition, be digital public squares: they are just stalls, booths, were we go and check certain vegetables.

GrinningFool 4y ago
That seems like saying your town is a public town square because everyone has an address that can be reached by post.
- ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
  Not all analogies can be saved, nevertheless let's try: the town = the TCP/IP suite of protocols (UDP, QUIC, etc. included) the public town square = DNS a booth selling vegetables in the public town square = a domain, "foo.com", publishing whatever their opinion is about reality and everything else A great lie told again and again by "social media" domains is that they are "platforms", but a platform is meant to sustain something else beyond itself. "foo.com", "twitter.com" are merely individual booths, where all the value is owned by the person/company owning that domain, irregardless of how "easy" it is to "post" on "foo.com" and how difficult it is to setup a new booth/domain on DNS: DNS is that platform we have been hearing ad nauseam. And even more, a domain, such as "foo.com", or "twitter.com", or "tiktok.com", is fundamentally someone's estate, owned by a master [1]: it's a glaringly obvious contradiction in terms to say that a domain could ever be a "public town square". Entering and adding value to someone else's domain is akin to belonging to a feudal master, a technofeudalism if you will [2]. And some tehnofeuds are great, I personally enjoy "github.com", but believing that "github.com" is a "public town square" for code, not backing up your work in other places, it's at the very least irresponsible. [1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/domain#etymonline_v_13918 https://www.etymonline.com/word/domain#etymonline_v_13918 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMSNpq4K67o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMSNpq4K67o
  - GrinningFool 4y ago
    This is a truly heroic effort. I think you make a valid point that a domain can't be considered a public square, but am not convinced that the domain name registry system can. DNS itself (in the form that gets used publicly) is controlled by a few actors -- arguably the 'true' owners of all the domains that are leased from them. This is underscored every time new TLDs are released and people have to scramble to secure their names and brands. In that context alone, DNS also can't qualify as the public square.
    - ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
      Oh, sure, lots of issues with DNS itself and ICANN. Sort of a "democracy situation", if you will: the worst except for all the others.
ebiester 4y ago
So, how do I know about foo.com? Discoverability and noise filtering are the hard problem.
- ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
  Absolutely, that's why ever since Lycos and AltaVista we relied on certain third-party domains to solve both discoverability and noise filtering. However, now, after we, the users, have created such Leviathans [1] as Google, Meta, and so on, we, the developers, must go back to the drawing board and solve discoverability, noise filtering, payments [2], and much more at the protocol level. Which is not even a new or outrageous idea, even Mr. Jack Dorsey seems to agree to this [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book) [2] https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-request https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-request [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesky_(protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesky_(protocol)

GrinningFool 4y ago

That seems like saying your town is a public town square because everyone has an address that can be reached by post.

ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
Not all analogies can be saved, nevertheless let's try: the town = the TCP/IP suite of protocols (UDP, QUIC, etc. included) the public town square = DNS a booth selling vegetables in the public town square = a domain, "foo.com", publishing whatever their opinion is about reality and everything else A great lie told again and again by "social media" domains is that they are "platforms", but a platform is meant to sustain something else beyond itself. "foo.com", "twitter.com" are merely individual booths, where all the value is owned by the person/company owning that domain, irregardless of how "easy" it is to "post" on "foo.com" and how difficult it is to setup a new booth/domain on DNS: DNS is that platform we have been hearing ad nauseam. And even more, a domain, such as "foo.com", or "twitter.com", or "tiktok.com", is fundamentally someone's estate, owned by a master [1]: it's a glaringly obvious contradiction in terms to say that a domain could ever be a "public town square". Entering and adding value to someone else's domain is akin to belonging to a feudal master, a technofeudalism if you will [2]. And some tehnofeuds are great, I personally enjoy "github.com", but believing that "github.com" is a "public town square" for code, not backing up your work in other places, it's at the very least irresponsible. [1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/domain#etymonline_v_13918 https://www.etymonline.com/word/domain#etymonline_v_13918 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMSNpq4K67o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMSNpq4K67o
- GrinningFool 4y ago
  This is a truly heroic effort. I think you make a valid point that a domain can't be considered a public square, but am not convinced that the domain name registry system can. DNS itself (in the form that gets used publicly) is controlled by a few actors -- arguably the 'true' owners of all the domains that are leased from them. This is underscored every time new TLDs are released and people have to scramble to secure their names and brands. In that context alone, DNS also can't qualify as the public square.
  - ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
    Oh, sure, lots of issues with DNS itself and ICANN. Sort of a "democracy situation", if you will: the worst except for all the others.

ebiester 4y ago

So, how do I know about foo.com? Discoverability and noise filtering are the hard problem.

ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
Absolutely, that's why ever since Lycos and AltaVista we relied on certain third-party domains to solve both discoverability and noise filtering. However, now, after we, the users, have created such Leviathans [1] as Google, Meta, and so on, we, the developers, must go back to the drawing board and solve discoverability, noise filtering, payments [2], and much more at the protocol level. Which is not even a new or outrageous idea, even Mr. Jack Dorsey seems to agree to this [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book) [2] https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-request https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-request [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesky_(protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesky_(protocol)