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This "hinternet" is a cool concept, but there's something missing from its account. On one side we have the cultured elites of academia, the military and gover

This "hinternet" is a cool concept, but there's something missing from its account. On one side we have the cultured elites of academia, the military and government - as rightful founders. On the other, the unwashed masses, immigrants of the Eternal September. Eventually this hoi polloi of hucksters, chancers and grifters became naturalised as the businesses and bankers in the new world. The dotcom era is a colonisation story and the elites are the aboriginal natives driven off their own land. It sure fits a "woke" narrative. But what's missing from this fairy-tale is the actual real people. The truth is, dotcom, Web2.0 and the empire building between 1997 and about 2010 was still a marginal affair, where existing money and power moved into the internet, along with a handful of rugged "entrepreneurs" (as we like to call ourselves around here). The 99% remained spectators caught between the Scylla and Charibdes, and now they are corralled into ranches, all lovingly watched over... The potential for a "people's internet" still remains, but we have not solved many (indeed any) of the classical problems of freeloaders, tragedy of the commons.... and at this point I think "Web 3.0 and blockchain web" is dead (?) A good start to moving things forward to an internet that is once again public, high-quality and large might be looking more closely at the history/narrative of the internet and who the real stakeholders are.

adventured 3y ago
The people have their Internet already. They like Netflix, they like Amazon Prime, they love TikTok, they like Instagram, they like Pinterest, they like their various chat apps, they like their online gaming, and so on. That is all that they want. Along with some decent ecommerce for shopping and safe, easy to use mobile banking. There's nothing magical about it, and there never will be. They don't want fluffy magical bullshit. They already have most of what they want and there's nothing grandiose about it, it's overwhelmingly just quasi-boring pedestrian entertainment and amusement to pass the time. That's what they wanted before the Internet, and it's what they naturally want with the Internet. It's because they're tired from their days, their 307 serious life problems (health, mortgage, bills, stress, job), and their exhausting children (that they love dearly of course). No no no, the peoples Internet must be a vision of splendor! The masses want to spend all day creating extraordinary art, and thinking deeply about complex subjects they just educated themselves on! That's not reality, and it's not what the masses want at all. Not even remotely close. They want a garbage pile of chaos like Reddit. Where they can insult people without getting punched in the face, and they can learn some tips about wood working other there, and they can look at photos of modded cars over in another sub, and they can go back to insulting someone over in another sub, and then they can watch a stream of rockets being fired at/from Gaza in another thread. The peoples Internet is already here.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  There's a huge amount of truth in what you say. Hence I used the pejorative "Hoi Polloi". But you can probably tell I once worked for the BBC. And what might look like elitism (of the kind I wouldn't apologise for) is really hope for wider humanity in spite of the Rupert Murdock effect, in spite of a concerted 50 year assault on education, and in spite of the misappropriation of the internet as a giant firehose for diarrhoea. The West's self-devouring and terminal-stage enshitification is quite the spectacle. So when we look at "the people" and say this or that is "what they want", something recoils inside me. Do we know that? A perpetual cycle where people know what they like and they like what they know is not a stasis or fact of the world but a precarious place of comfortable mediocrity we've come to be. A local minima. There are other places. Cultures have flourished. And sometimes they wane. The Internet (big I) was more than just a lot of wires, it was an idea. Maybe some fragments of that idea are still alive, I don't know.
  - hyggetrold 3y ago
    > So when we look at "the people" and say this or that is "what they want", something recoils inside me. Do we know that? The famous (controversial) Indian teacher Osho had a saying on this: "Democracy. Government of the people, by the people, for the people...but the people are retarded."
    - bad_user 3y ago
      We often look down on "the people", but the masses have more wisdom than the elites, even if societal consensus can sometimes lead to terrible solutions to problems. Democracy is nuanced, much like reality, and this bothers people.
      - hyggetrold 3y ago
        > the masses have more wisdom than the elites I used to think this way also but in recent times I have become less sure. Maybe the easiest way to explain my thinking is to recall that line from the movie Men in Black: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals, and you know it." Obviously the truth is way more complex than that but I really do doubt the wisdom of the crowds. A different example might the guys who wrote up the Constitution of the United States. More people were illiterate than literate back in those days. The founders were a small elite, but they created a framework that has served millions of people for a few hundred years. In any case, yes, democracy is nuanced. It is the best system despite its flaws. And to be frank, the real issue with democracy is that it's run by people...and hardly any of us walk on water. :)
r113500 3y ago
you misunderstood the concept, brought in your own windmills, and then successfully attacked them. I guess it generated an interesting subthread, even if it did derail my point into the tired "internet ain't what it used to be!" direction. god, I was hoping what I said was more subtle than that. other people in the thread have done better, even managed to use google to search the original posts on oblomovka so that they can reflect on the point, instead of just typing things. but to your "people's internet" point, the real communism has clearly never been tried! it's not the people that want TikTok, it's the power structure. left to their own devices they built cathedrals!
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  Sorry if I stole some of your thunder there old chap. I don't think I "misunderstood the concept" but rather found it wanting and moved the discussion on. The focus was your precis of the term "hinternet" which I found very interesting and so addressed. Where it landed (perhaps thanks to TeMPOraL) was actually quite exciting in my opinion, that, in the words of The Jam: "the public wants what the public gets." That's something different from the tired old "internet ain't what it used to be!" trope. Isn't it? : That the entire "market theory" of the internet (and maybe technology in general) is mostly myth. > real communism has clearly never been tried! Not sure I follow how a vibrant, diverse, bottom-up, self-governed Internet would be akin to "communism", but then you've got your own windmills to tilt at too.
  - r113500 3y ago
    the public's wants are always reduced to trite generalizations, so maybe it's not about thunder, maybe the upset is that one can generate lively conversation easily by exploiting trite dichotomies, and that such a behavior is distasteful. everybody has an opinion on the hoi polloi from the vantage of their phantom high horse. a chat gpt could write the rest of the thread. "real communism has clearly never been tried" is a set expression, from the internet. it's a variation on doing the same thing, but expecting different results, with a touch of ideological stubbornness, "this time around if we let people choose, they'll choose a very different internet, from the one they chose before, i'm sure of it, because I believe in people". of course the reason I choose this particular set expression, rather than some other one is to play off your comedic choice of terminology "people's internet". they have "people's internet" in "people's republic of china". you know? I'm not saying communism bad, it's a funny phrase. jeez, you brits used to be keen on subtle humor.
oldbbsnickname 3y ago
Most problems stem from users conflating for-profit corporations for public commons. Nonprofit co-ops must provide critical infrastructure. Who exactly is this prerogative "freeloader" you throw around so casually? Is there some service or good denied others involved?
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  > Who exactly is this prerogative "freeloader" you throw around so casually? Is there some service or good denied others involved? Spammers would be a good example. They freeload on the mail routing network. Their actions deny service, as bandwidth, storage and wasted time to millions of ordinary users.
williamcotton 3y ago
For any readers, “Scylla and Charybdis” is the OG “rock and a hard place.”
- bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  you mean - for any readers from the unwashed masses surely?!?

adventured 3y ago

The people have their Internet already. They like Netflix, they like Amazon Prime, they love TikTok, they like Instagram, they like Pinterest, they like their various chat apps, they like their online gaming, and so on. That is all that they want. Along with some decent ecommerce for shopping and safe, easy to use mobile banking. There's nothing magical about it, and there never will be. They don't want fluffy magical bullshit. They already have most of what they want and there's nothing grandiose about it, it's overwhelmingly just quasi-boring pedestrian entertainment and amusement to pass the time. That's what they wanted before the Internet, and it's what they naturally want with the Internet. It's because they're tired from their days, their 307 serious life problems (health, mortgage, bills, stress, job), and their exhausting children (that they love dearly of course). No no no, the peoples Internet must be a vision of splendor! The masses want to spend all day creating extraordinary art, and thinking deeply about complex subjects they just educated themselves on! That's not reality, and it's not what the masses want at all. Not even remotely close. They want a garbage pile of chaos like Reddit. Where they can insult people without getting punched in the face, and they can learn some tips about wood working other there, and they can look at photos of modded cars over in another sub, and they can go back to insulting someone over in another sub, and then they can watch a stream of rockets being fired at/from Gaza in another thread. The peoples Internet is already here.

nonrandomstring 3y ago
There's a huge amount of truth in what you say. Hence I used the pejorative "Hoi Polloi". But you can probably tell I once worked for the BBC. And what might look like elitism (of the kind I wouldn't apologise for) is really hope for wider humanity in spite of the Rupert Murdock effect, in spite of a concerted 50 year assault on education, and in spite of the misappropriation of the internet as a giant firehose for diarrhoea. The West's self-devouring and terminal-stage enshitification is quite the spectacle. So when we look at "the people" and say this or that is "what they want", something recoils inside me. Do we know that? A perpetual cycle where people know what they like and they like what they know is not a stasis or fact of the world but a precarious place of comfortable mediocrity we've come to be. A local minima. There are other places. Cultures have flourished. And sometimes they wane. The Internet (big I) was more than just a lot of wires, it was an idea. Maybe some fragments of that idea are still alive, I don't know.
- hyggetrold 3y ago
  > So when we look at "the people" and say this or that is "what they want", something recoils inside me. Do we know that? The famous (controversial) Indian teacher Osho had a saying on this: "Democracy. Government of the people, by the people, for the people...but the people are retarded."
  - bad_user 3y ago
    We often look down on "the people", but the masses have more wisdom than the elites, even if societal consensus can sometimes lead to terrible solutions to problems. Democracy is nuanced, much like reality, and this bothers people.
    - hyggetrold 3y ago
      > the masses have more wisdom than the elites I used to think this way also but in recent times I have become less sure. Maybe the easiest way to explain my thinking is to recall that line from the movie Men in Black: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals, and you know it." Obviously the truth is way more complex than that but I really do doubt the wisdom of the crowds. A different example might the guys who wrote up the Constitution of the United States. More people were illiterate than literate back in those days. The founders were a small elite, but they created a framework that has served millions of people for a few hundred years. In any case, yes, democracy is nuanced. It is the best system despite its flaws. And to be frank, the real issue with democracy is that it's run by people...and hardly any of us walk on water. :)

r113500 3y ago

you misunderstood the concept, brought in your own windmills, and then successfully attacked them. I guess it generated an interesting subthread, even if it did derail my point into the tired "internet ain't what it used to be!" direction. god, I was hoping what I said was more subtle than that. other people in the thread have done better, even managed to use google to search the original posts on oblomovka so that they can reflect on the point, instead of just typing things. but to your "people's internet" point, the real communism has clearly never been tried! it's not the people that want TikTok, it's the power structure. left to their own devices they built cathedrals!

nonrandomstring 3y ago
Sorry if I stole some of your thunder there old chap. I don't think I "misunderstood the concept" but rather found it wanting and moved the discussion on. The focus was your precis of the term "hinternet" which I found very interesting and so addressed. Where it landed (perhaps thanks to TeMPOraL) was actually quite exciting in my opinion, that, in the words of The Jam: "the public wants what the public gets." That's something different from the tired old "internet ain't what it used to be!" trope. Isn't it? : That the entire "market theory" of the internet (and maybe technology in general) is mostly myth. > real communism has clearly never been tried! Not sure I follow how a vibrant, diverse, bottom-up, self-governed Internet would be akin to "communism", but then you've got your own windmills to tilt at too.
- r113500 3y ago
  the public's wants are always reduced to trite generalizations, so maybe it's not about thunder, maybe the upset is that one can generate lively conversation easily by exploiting trite dichotomies, and that such a behavior is distasteful. everybody has an opinion on the hoi polloi from the vantage of their phantom high horse. a chat gpt could write the rest of the thread. "real communism has clearly never been tried" is a set expression, from the internet. it's a variation on doing the same thing, but expecting different results, with a touch of ideological stubbornness, "this time around if we let people choose, they'll choose a very different internet, from the one they chose before, i'm sure of it, because I believe in people". of course the reason I choose this particular set expression, rather than some other one is to play off your comedic choice of terminology "people's internet". they have "people's internet" in "people's republic of china". you know? I'm not saying communism bad, it's a funny phrase. jeez, you brits used to be keen on subtle humor.

oldbbsnickname 3y ago

Most problems stem from users conflating for-profit corporations for public commons. Nonprofit co-ops must provide critical infrastructure. Who exactly is this prerogative "freeloader" you throw around so casually? Is there some service or good denied others involved?

nonrandomstring 3y ago
> Who exactly is this prerogative "freeloader" you throw around so casually? Is there some service or good denied others involved? Spammers would be a good example. They freeload on the mail routing network. Their actions deny service, as bandwidth, storage and wasted time to millions of ordinary users.

williamcotton 3y ago

For any readers, “Scylla and Charybdis” is the OG “rock and a hard place.”

bryanrasmussen 3y ago
you mean - for any readers from the unwashed masses surely?!?