4 ms·

Oof, that hyper-aggressive whitewashing of the DRM proposal from yoavweiss_ was a harsh lesson in realpolitik. Nerds were bringing good faith arguments to a bad

Oof, that hyper-aggressive whitewashing of the DRM proposal from yoavweiss_ was a harsh lesson in realpolitik. Nerds were bringing good faith arguments to a bad faith optics war and getting slaughtered.

belval 3y ago
For people wondering which of the links to click: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857676 It's mostly just the classic "nono if you don't agree it's because you don't understand" and "please educate yourself" approach.
- whatshisface 3y ago
  At least they didn't try, "I don't have time to educate you about why you're bad!"
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  > "P.S. I'd love to discuss this with y'all like professional adults. Can we do that?" You can tell somebody is a snake when they aren't from the South but use "y'all". It's become a sort of corporate snake shibboleth.
  - jkaplowitz 3y ago
    Meh, it spreads a lot more broadly than the corporate snake people. And honestly I’ve never heard the corporate snakes use it myself (at least not before the example which you quoted), but I’m sure there are corporate snakes who do.
  - duxup 3y ago
    I certainly think that a lot but I sure as hell wouldn’t say it. It doesn’t help, that discussion never goes well.
  - dmoy 3y ago
    Uhhh, what? I use y'all 'cus that's how all the kids in my school talked growing up. I ditched a lot of the lexicon because after my family moved to the suburbs, I got made fun of by my new friends, literally calling me "less white". So no more finna', for example. I will die on the hill of having a good second person plural pronoun though.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      Once you've used English with a second person plural pronoun, you can't go back. PS: "Yous guys" doesn't count
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      "y'all" is a bit fraught in the US because (incorrectly, in my opinion), in some parts the use is associated with certain unflattering cultural stereotypes. Not usually racial ones. > I will die on the hill of having a good second person plural pronoun though. I'm with you there -- we really need one, but I haven't found one that is broadly safe to use.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      If you actually grew up using it, then you're not who I'm talking about. The word, like "folks", has become part of the affected dialect used by corporate ass-kissers to tell other corporate ass-kissers what they're about. Used primarily by slimy management, HR and PR types. These types do not say finna, that isn't part of this affected dialect. If you say finna then you're not who I'm talking about.
      - Intralexical 3y ago
        …Okay, again, I really need/want there to be a gender-neutral plural familiarism like "guys", though, and "folks" fits great....
    - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
      Here in the rural parts of Ontario (well not in my rural part of Ontario, but further north), that pronoun is "youse" As a long boy visiting from Alberta I was astounded that this existed. It might be dying out tho
  - Intralexical 3y ago
    Look, it's either "y'all", "vous", or bringing back "thou" for the singular, okay?
mixmastamyk 3y ago
Looks like yoavweiss was slaughtered, not the good-faith nerds.
wkat4242 3y ago
I don't think they were. After reading this my view of this person is just a corporate drone. Obviously this proposal is to serve the content owners, not the users, whatever the thoughts behind it are. And yes it may not be intended to block adblockers but it certainly can easily be used for that once it's ubiquitous. Attestation which is basically what this is, always implies a move of some measure of control from the user to the content or service provider. It exists purely because they don't trust the user. There is just no way this would have ended positively. And why would I go into discussion with Google? They don't own the web and never will. And their business model means they (and their employees) will always be my enemy because their goals are opposite to my own. I can criticise but it doesn't have to be constructive. A "Just NO" is fine too. I would be very happy with a world where Google doesn't exist. But in this case the nerds won which means the way it was done worked perfectly fine. Perhaps they will have stepped on a few toes at Google but I'm kinda glad to hear that.
- jppittma 3y ago
  Hey, look, it's the bad faith optics war again.
- thaumaturgy 3y ago
  Even more simply: let's not get dragged into debating the technical merits of something which is philosophically wrong. That particular person was trying really hard to reframe the whole argument into terms that would work in Google's favor -- if we just pointed out what was technically wrong with the proposal, why, they'd just fix those things and then we'd be good to go. But, it was philosophically wrong, because we've all understood the web to be fundamentally open and anonymous and not controlled by any one entity [1] for decades and most of us want it to stay that way. Even if WEI was technically sound, it would still be an enormous erosion of the principles of an open, anonymous, decentralized web. Any attempt to argue against WEI on its technical merits alone was just allowing Google to drag the whole fight into favorable territory. > And why would I go into discussion with Google? They don't own the web and never will. Oh, I think this is a big mistake. Google very nearly does own the web. Gmail handles, at last estimates, between 45% and 60% of email traffic, depending on who you talk to. Chrome or Chromium gets somewhere around 65% of the global browser market. Google gets around 90% of search traffic. Google ads. Google domains. YouTube. Google Cloud, which WPEngine for example runs on. Google Docs. Chromebooks. Android. I really need more people to pause and reflect for a moment on just how much of the internet is currently owned by Google. [1]: Well, ignoring ICANN, or Microsoft, or Google, or Cisco, or...

belval 3y ago

For people wondering which of the links to click: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857676 It's mostly just the classic "nono if you don't agree it's because you don't understand" and "please educate yourself" approach.

whatshisface 3y ago
At least they didn't try, "I don't have time to educate you about why you're bad!"
mcpackieh 3y ago
> "P.S. I'd love to discuss this with y'all like professional adults. Can we do that?" You can tell somebody is a snake when they aren't from the South but use "y'all". It's become a sort of corporate snake shibboleth.
- jkaplowitz 3y ago
  Meh, it spreads a lot more broadly than the corporate snake people. And honestly I’ve never heard the corporate snakes use it myself (at least not before the example which you quoted), but I’m sure there are corporate snakes who do.
- duxup 3y ago
  I certainly think that a lot but I sure as hell wouldn’t say it. It doesn’t help, that discussion never goes well.
- dmoy 3y ago
  Uhhh, what? I use y'all 'cus that's how all the kids in my school talked growing up. I ditched a lot of the lexicon because after my family moved to the suburbs, I got made fun of by my new friends, literally calling me "less white". So no more finna', for example. I will die on the hill of having a good second person plural pronoun though.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Once you've used English with a second person plural pronoun, you can't go back. PS: "Yous guys" doesn't count
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    "y'all" is a bit fraught in the US because (incorrectly, in my opinion), in some parts the use is associated with certain unflattering cultural stereotypes. Not usually racial ones. > I will die on the hill of having a good second person plural pronoun though. I'm with you there -- we really need one, but I haven't found one that is broadly safe to use.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    If you actually grew up using it, then you're not who I'm talking about. The word, like "folks", has become part of the affected dialect used by corporate ass-kissers to tell other corporate ass-kissers what they're about. Used primarily by slimy management, HR and PR types. These types do not say finna, that isn't part of this affected dialect. If you say finna then you're not who I'm talking about.
    - Intralexical 3y ago
      …Okay, again, I really need/want there to be a gender-neutral plural familiarism like "guys", though, and "folks" fits great....
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Here in the rural parts of Ontario (well not in my rural part of Ontario, but further north), that pronoun is "youse" As a long boy visiting from Alberta I was astounded that this existed. It might be dying out tho
- Intralexical 3y ago
  Look, it's either "y'all", "vous", or bringing back "thou" for the singular, okay?

mixmastamyk 3y ago

Looks like yoavweiss was slaughtered, not the good-faith nerds.

wkat4242 3y ago

I don't think they were. After reading this my view of this person is just a corporate drone. Obviously this proposal is to serve the content owners, not the users, whatever the thoughts behind it are. And yes it may not be intended to block adblockers but it certainly can easily be used for that once it's ubiquitous. Attestation which is basically what this is, always implies a move of some measure of control from the user to the content or service provider. It exists purely because they don't trust the user. There is just no way this would have ended positively. And why would I go into discussion with Google? They don't own the web and never will. And their business model means they (and their employees) will always be my enemy because their goals are opposite to my own. I can criticise but it doesn't have to be constructive. A "Just NO" is fine too. I would be very happy with a world where Google doesn't exist. But in this case the nerds won which means the way it was done worked perfectly fine. Perhaps they will have stepped on a few toes at Google but I'm kinda glad to hear that.

jppittma 3y ago
Hey, look, it's the bad faith optics war again.
thaumaturgy 3y ago
Even more simply: let's not get dragged into debating the technical merits of something which is philosophically wrong. That particular person was trying really hard to reframe the whole argument into terms that would work in Google's favor -- if we just pointed out what was technically wrong with the proposal, why, they'd just fix those things and then we'd be good to go. But, it was philosophically wrong, because we've all understood the web to be fundamentally open and anonymous and not controlled by any one entity [1] for decades and most of us want it to stay that way. Even if WEI was technically sound, it would still be an enormous erosion of the principles of an open, anonymous, decentralized web. Any attempt to argue against WEI on its technical merits alone was just allowing Google to drag the whole fight into favorable territory. > And why would I go into discussion with Google? They don't own the web and never will. Oh, I think this is a big mistake. Google very nearly does own the web. Gmail handles, at last estimates, between 45% and 60% of email traffic, depending on who you talk to. Chrome or Chromium gets somewhere around 65% of the global browser market. Google gets around 90% of search traffic. Google ads. Google domains. YouTube. Google Cloud, which WPEngine for example runs on. Google Docs. Chromebooks. Android. I really need more people to pause and reflect for a moment on just how much of the internet is currently owned by Google. [1]: Well, ignoring ICANN, or Microsoft, or Google, or Cisco, or...