4 ms·

The Internet has never been less free and open than it is today. Their advocacy has utterly failed.

mmooss 2y ago
> The Internet has never been less free and open than it is today. In what ways? I'd say it was less free and open when Microsoft controlled almost everyone's browsers, when user data was sent in the open (https wasn't standard), .... It was less free and open in early days when users was restricted to specific types of work; for example, I think conducting business wasn't allowed. > Their advocacy has utterly failed. What have they advocated for that has 'utterly failed'?
- tivert 2y ago
  >> The Internet has never been less free and open than it is today. > In what ways? In the past the internet was a collection of a multitude of relatively open and decentralized sites. Now, it's utterly dominated by a few large platforms, frequently focused on exploiting user data to the fullest. Everything else is pretty marginal.
  - psd1 2y ago
    They're are at least two different lenses looking at "the internet" ITT. I don't see how Mozilla could have shifted the needle on the rise of big web properties. In fact, I want a browser to be completely agnostic, so if Mozilla had, e.g., prevented the rise of Facebook, then I'd probably conclude that they were anti-open. What I do want is web standards. IE built its moat, partly, by breaking standards. To be charitable, perhaps standards were moving too slowly. The sane thing is ming again with chrome. Now, by my choice not to use a chrome engine, i have patches of nonfunctionality. I feel like we've been trojan'd.
    - frenchy 2y ago
      Standards are great, in theory, but a standards group can easily be co-opted by throwing enough people and money at it. That's basically what happened with DRM.
      - mmooss 2y ago
        > a standards group can easily be co-opted by throwing enough people and money at it. The word 'easily' does a lot of work there. How easy? Many standards work well. The Internet, an incredibly successful engineering project, is built on standards.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    We are back to MSN, Compuserve and AOL days, before Internet became widespread. Apparently centralization is what most regular folks rather adopt.
- Xelbair 2y ago
  This time Google controls everyone's browsers, and has perverse conflict of interest between advertising and users - which Microsoft didn't had(yet). also internet has become more and more centralized compared to it's heyday. even that alone makes it less free and open.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > Google controls everyone's browsers Apple has a large market share, unless we exclude mobile users.
- stackghost 2y ago
  We're back to a browser monoculture, Chrome, and Google controls browsers to maliciously cripple ad blocking because it affects their bottom line. DRM is rampant. Network neutrality is moribund at best. Power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few megacorps so you and I can't, for example, run our own email servers if we expect to actually be able to communicate with users of Google or Microsoft. AI companies get rich doing things that would be illegal for you and me, such as hoovering up copyrighted works without paying for them. Surveillance is pervasive. That's just off the top of my head.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    There are many problems, but that's not evidence that Mozilla's programs are ineffective. People have many health problems and diseases, but that doesn't mean the healthcare system in ineffective. What it shows is that we need Mozilla and healthcare. > We're back to a browser monoculture, Chrome, and Google controls browsers Don't forget Apple's browsers, including all the iPhone users.
    - stackghost 2y ago
      >People have many health problems and diseases, but that doesn't mean the healthcare system in ineffective. This is a deeply flawed analogy, and the two situations are superficially similar at best.
      - mmooss 2y ago
        Unless you share your reasoning, it's just a baseless claim. Also, what about the issue, whether or not you happen to like the analogy?
        stackghost 2y ago
        HN is a very poor medium for this type of conversation, so I'm just going to move on
- JohnFen 2y ago
  > I'd say it was less free and open when Microsoft controlled almost everyone's browsers Now it's Google, so that situation hasn't changed any. > What have they advocated for that has 'utterly failed'? Privacy and keeping the web open, mostly. The privacy situation is worse now than ever, and the open web is continuing to shrink. > It was less free and open in early days when users was restricted to specific types of work; for example, I think conducting business wasn't allowed. When was this? I've been on the internet since before it was open to the general public, and I don't remember a time when users were restricted to specific types of work, nor a time when conducting business was not allowed.
Anthony-G 2y ago
One huge success that doesn’t seem to have been mentioned in this discussion is the Let’s Encrypt project which was started by Mozilla staff and has had remarkable success in setting up a public key infrastructure that makes it free – and easy – for server admins to configure TLS on their web servers. 20 years ago HTTP was the default protocol for web traffic; now HTTPS is the default.

> The Internet has never been less free and open than it is today. In what ways? I'd say it was less free and open when Microsoft controlled almost everyone's browsers, when user data was sent in the open (https wasn't standard), .... It was less free and open in early days when users was restricted to specific types of work; for example, I think conducting business wasn't allowed. > Their advocacy has utterly failed. What have they advocated for that has 'utterly failed'?

tivert 2y ago
>> The Internet has never been less free and open than it is today. > In what ways? In the past the internet was a collection of a multitude of relatively open and decentralized sites. Now, it's utterly dominated by a few large platforms, frequently focused on exploiting user data to the fullest. Everything else is pretty marginal.
- psd1 2y ago
  They're are at least two different lenses looking at "the internet" ITT. I don't see how Mozilla could have shifted the needle on the rise of big web properties. In fact, I want a browser to be completely agnostic, so if Mozilla had, e.g., prevented the rise of Facebook, then I'd probably conclude that they were anti-open. What I do want is web standards. IE built its moat, partly, by breaking standards. To be charitable, perhaps standards were moving too slowly. The sane thing is ming again with chrome. Now, by my choice not to use a chrome engine, i have patches of nonfunctionality. I feel like we've been trojan'd.
  - frenchy 2y ago
    Standards are great, in theory, but a standards group can easily be co-opted by throwing enough people and money at it. That's basically what happened with DRM.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      > a standards group can easily be co-opted by throwing enough people and money at it. The word 'easily' does a lot of work there. How easy? Many standards work well. The Internet, an incredibly successful engineering project, is built on standards.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  We are back to MSN, Compuserve and AOL days, before Internet became widespread. Apparently centralization is what most regular folks rather adopt.
Xelbair 2y ago
This time Google controls everyone's browsers, and has perverse conflict of interest between advertising and users - which Microsoft didn't had(yet). also internet has become more and more centralized compared to it's heyday. even that alone makes it less free and open.
- mmooss 2y ago
  > Google controls everyone's browsers Apple has a large market share, unless we exclude mobile users.
stackghost 2y ago
We're back to a browser monoculture, Chrome, and Google controls browsers to maliciously cripple ad blocking because it affects their bottom line. DRM is rampant. Network neutrality is moribund at best. Power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few megacorps so you and I can't, for example, run our own email servers if we expect to actually be able to communicate with users of Google or Microsoft. AI companies get rich doing things that would be illegal for you and me, such as hoovering up copyrighted works without paying for them. Surveillance is pervasive. That's just off the top of my head.
- mmooss 2y ago
  There are many problems, but that's not evidence that Mozilla's programs are ineffective. People have many health problems and diseases, but that doesn't mean the healthcare system in ineffective. What it shows is that we need Mozilla and healthcare. > We're back to a browser monoculture, Chrome, and Google controls browsers Don't forget Apple's browsers, including all the iPhone users.
  - stackghost 2y ago
    >People have many health problems and diseases, but that doesn't mean the healthcare system in ineffective. This is a deeply flawed analogy, and the two situations are superficially similar at best.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      Unless you share your reasoning, it's just a baseless claim. Also, what about the issue, whether or not you happen to like the analogy?
      - stackghost 2y ago
        HN is a very poor medium for this type of conversation, so I'm just going to move on
JohnFen 2y ago
> I'd say it was less free and open when Microsoft controlled almost everyone's browsers Now it's Google, so that situation hasn't changed any. > What have they advocated for that has 'utterly failed'? Privacy and keeping the web open, mostly. The privacy situation is worse now than ever, and the open web is continuing to shrink. > It was less free and open in early days when users was restricted to specific types of work; for example, I think conducting business wasn't allowed. When was this? I've been on the internet since before it was open to the general public, and I don't remember a time when users were restricted to specific types of work, nor a time when conducting business was not allowed.

Anthony-G 2y ago

One huge success that doesn’t seem to have been mentioned in this discussion is the Let’s Encrypt project which was started by Mozilla staff and has had remarkable success in setting up a public key infrastructure that makes it free – and easy – for server admins to configure TLS on their web servers. 20 years ago HTTP was the default protocol for web traffic; now HTTPS is the default.