3 ms·
Two things: - I don't believe there is a general solution to this problem, but that won't stop people with lots of money and influence from trying to find a ge
by jchw 2y ago
Two things:
- I don't believe there is a general solution to this problem, but that won't stop people with lots of money and influence from trying to find a general solution. Especially one that is cheap. I still hope for the least user- and ecosystem-hostile approach among the flawed approaches to win. (I guess of the ones I listed, the one that bothers me the least is having more policing of the service providers.)
- CAPTCHAs from static content are almost assuredly for anti-scraping measures. I think anti-scraping measures are mostly pointless and antithetical to an open web in the first place, but, an effective anti-scraping measure kind of has to work off of reputation, because getting access to a very large number of IP addresses isn't free, but it doesn't cost that much (especially if IPv6 is on the table.) I personally doubt it has much to do with server load in most cases, but maybe I am wrong.
- mindslight 2y agoThere are indeed many powerful motives supporting the march of technological authoritarianism. But validating the narratives about why ever-more control is needed is a form of support, which we should avoid doing. Rather we need to recognize that they're merely instances of the same old authoritarian fallacy of more control promising better outcomes, because what increased control ends up ruining cannot be enumerated. In actuality, reducing independent autonomy stifles invention and suffocates society. "Anti-scraping" is a dubious problem in the context of web sites aimed at publishing information. The best "anti-scraping" solution is a published API that includes bulk downloads. I'll admit there's a tiny sliver of sites for which controlling consumption might make sense, but it's certainly not ones that allow browsing without even logging in.