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Money and Javascript. The vast majority of people only visit websites that are other people's jobs. Popular websites now are those that provide legal ways of m

Money and Javascript. The vast majority of people only visit websites that are other people's jobs. Popular websites now are those that provide legal ways of moving money. It's why no matter how good an open social network can be it'll only ever attract a fractional percentage of people(1) because KYC prevents any non-incorporated/institutional group from moving money. (1: ie, mastodon's 1 million, IRC's ~600k, etc). And perhaps more importantly: the growth of HTTP as a javascript application delivery protocol instead of a way to access HTML pages on websites. The shift to browsers being fully fledged VMs runing real applications with lots of bare metal access means the utmost of security is required at all times (HTTP/3 can't even make a non-CA TLS connection). That security mindset makes for a lot more friction for humans trying to play around and share things with each other.

soulofmischief 2y ago
Blaming JavaScript for the state of the web is like blaming money for greed. JavaScript is only the medium, and the driving force behind it would have created a different language if needed. This take seems too narrow.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  There's a clear argument to be made that technical capability circumscribes commercial possibility. Without active arbitrary code running on behalf of websites, control would be substantially tilted in favor of user clients. There was probably no future where AJAX didn't evolve, but if it hadn't then things would look different.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    I think the problem is a different one. What we needed (still need) is a better sandbox for native code. So you can feel as comfortable running some offline app found in some rando's Reddit post as you do clicking on a link from same. Which, in turn, lets untrusted people create interesting new apps without any gatekeepers or barriers to entry. Right now the same thing happens with the web, but because web browsers are inherently client-server, that creates an implied server dependency and then all of the misfeatures that come with it.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  JavaScript failed to take us to a good place because it was not designed to resist corruption. You might make similar arguments about money. If we went back and replaced those media with less naive designs, I think it's reasonable to believe that they'd take us somewhere different. We are hackers after all, reshaping technology is what we do. Of course let's also address the lack of scruples that got us here... In fact, let's each do that primarily in our own ways, I'm just saying that this might not be the forum for that.
TimeBearingDown 2y ago
Had me until the end. I haven’t seen the friction? Let’s Encrypt and web 1.0 still work and domains are cheap. OpenBSD’s httpd is great for this job. You’ll exclude less people if you don’t require any features. You can still give your site out on big platforms or use a QR code. Users of open social networks can directly transfer value now, with KYC at the on and off-ramps. Telegram was closest to implementing it into a very large and permissive network with open clients, albeit centralized and closed servers, though we’ll see how Durov’s French situation develops now.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > Let’s Encrypt and web 1.0 still work and domains are cheap. First the newest version of the protocol stops supporting something. Then, over time, most things switch to the new version, and the old version becomes unsupported. It's a notable change when the new version doesn't support something that the old one does, because that thing is probably going away. Let's Encrypt solves a lot of this but not all of it. In particular, it makes it harder for people to screw around starting out because you can't even send the link to your mom until you buy a domain and learn how DNS and Let's Encrypt work etc. > You can still give your site out on big platforms or use a QR code. The big platforms don't like to encourage their competitors. Links to off-site content are not likely to be promoted by algorithms. QR codes imply that you already have access to a large existing network of people in meatspace, which has never been true for most people. > Users of open social networks can directly transfer value now, with KYC at the on and off-ramps. How does that work? The internet is global but anyone without a first world bank account is stuffed. Even when everyone is in the US they can't send even trivial amounts of money to each other without an incompetent/predatory corporation acting as an intermediary. Meanwhile the theory also doesn't work, because "KYC at the on and off-ramps" is pretty meaningless for any system popular enough for its internal credits to be a de facto currency. But KYC has never really worked anyway. It has, however, caused a lot of trouble for innocent people who just want to be able to transfer small amounts of money for ordinary purchases without being subject to warrantless mass surveillance and the caprice of infuriating bureaucracies. These are real problems that deserve to be solved rather than dismissed.
  - 2y ago

soulofmischief 2y ago

Blaming JavaScript for the state of the web is like blaming money for greed. JavaScript is only the medium, and the driving force behind it would have created a different language if needed. This take seems too narrow.

ethbr1 2y ago
There's a clear argument to be made that technical capability circumscribes commercial possibility. Without active arbitrary code running on behalf of websites, control would be substantially tilted in favor of user clients. There was probably no future where AJAX didn't evolve, but if it hadn't then things would look different.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  I think the problem is a different one. What we needed (still need) is a better sandbox for native code. So you can feel as comfortable running some offline app found in some rando's Reddit post as you do clicking on a link from same. Which, in turn, lets untrusted people create interesting new apps without any gatekeepers or barriers to entry. Right now the same thing happens with the web, but because web browsers are inherently client-server, that creates an implied server dependency and then all of the misfeatures that come with it.
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
JavaScript failed to take us to a good place because it was not designed to resist corruption. You might make similar arguments about money. If we went back and replaced those media with less naive designs, I think it's reasonable to believe that they'd take us somewhere different. We are hackers after all, reshaping technology is what we do. Of course let's also address the lack of scruples that got us here... In fact, let's each do that primarily in our own ways, I'm just saying that this might not be the forum for that.

TimeBearingDown 2y ago

Had me until the end. I haven’t seen the friction? Let’s Encrypt and web 1.0 still work and domains are cheap. OpenBSD’s httpd is great for this job. You’ll exclude less people if you don’t require any features. You can still give your site out on big platforms or use a QR code. Users of open social networks can directly transfer value now, with KYC at the on and off-ramps. Telegram was closest to implementing it into a very large and permissive network with open clients, albeit centralized and closed servers, though we’ll see how Durov’s French situation develops now.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> Let’s Encrypt and web 1.0 still work and domains are cheap. First the newest version of the protocol stops supporting something. Then, over time, most things switch to the new version, and the old version becomes unsupported. It's a notable change when the new version doesn't support something that the old one does, because that thing is probably going away. Let's Encrypt solves a lot of this but not all of it. In particular, it makes it harder for people to screw around starting out because you can't even send the link to your mom until you buy a domain and learn how DNS and Let's Encrypt work etc. > You can still give your site out on big platforms or use a QR code. The big platforms don't like to encourage their competitors. Links to off-site content are not likely to be promoted by algorithms. QR codes imply that you already have access to a large existing network of people in meatspace, which has never been true for most people. > Users of open social networks can directly transfer value now, with KYC at the on and off-ramps. How does that work? The internet is global but anyone without a first world bank account is stuffed. Even when everyone is in the US they can't send even trivial amounts of money to each other without an incompetent/predatory corporation acting as an intermediary. Meanwhile the theory also doesn't work, because "KYC at the on and off-ramps" is pretty meaningless for any system popular enough for its internal credits to be a de facto currency. But KYC has never really worked anyway. It has, however, caused a lot of trouble for innocent people who just want to be able to transfer small amounts of money for ordinary purchases without being subject to warrantless mass surveillance and the caprice of infuriating bureaucracies. These are real problems that deserve to be solved rather than dismissed.
- 2y ago