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I want to continue to use the enterprise products paid for with billions of dollars of investment, because they still have tremendous value. Similarly, I want
by echelon 3mo ago
I want to continue to use the enterprise products paid for with billions of dollars of investment, because they still have tremendous value.
Similarly, I want to continue to use the platforms that have all the users, content, and network effects.
BUT - I'd like my own personal agent to sit between everything and strip out the nonsense before it hits my eyeballs.
Ad block used to be good enough, but we can clearly take this much further.
Ads are not the only toxic thing. The algorithm is. Attention seeking from any entity is. The whole internet is adversarial, not just one screen of one product.
An agent could sit between us and the web (or us and our apps) and strip out all the ads, strip out all the clickbait, filter out all the negativity, algo-spam, and low-value content. Calls to upgrade, cookie banners, MrBeast, whatever.
I want an agent that knows me and acts on my behalf as I browse the internet. It should see everything in my browser (or even everything on my screen) and whittles down the bullshit before it ever reaches me.
This kind of tool could focus the whole of the internet into perfect crystal clarity - into an internet whose only objective is to serve me. Certainly not an internet that can make me mad or that tries to convince me to buy things.
Something flexible like this goes beyond just search. It fixes everything on every corner of the internet.
If we treat this as a technology/browser/OS problem, then it can fix everything wholesale. I can continue to use the social media platforms and technology everyone else is using, but I won't be subjected to the bullshit. I don't have to switch to Kagi or BlueSky or whatever small alternative tries to go up against titans, loses the network effects, and winds up as smaller, less-functional offering.
A butler-like agent is a new pane of glass. An internet condom. A judge, jury, and executioner whose only goal is to make sure one stays focused and happy.
This is a product I would pay a thousand dollars a year for.
- DigiEggz 3mo agoThat's creating a slippery, echoey slope for the role of the agent / butler. You may end up replacing one problem with another.
- zombot 3mo ago> I would pay a thousand dollars a year More incentive to keep up enshittification, lest your appreciation of de-shittification wane.
- bayindirh 3mo agoThere are so many things I can write about this, but I’ll keep it short: Technological solutions to societal problems is one of the shortest paths to hell. So, no, thanks.
- erikerikson 3mo agoLike money? Or agriculture? Sincerely though, can you explain?
- passivegains 3mo ago"We need most of our population working full time to keep ourselves fed because running a farm is really hard" is a technical problem, not a societal one. You can solve it with fertilizer and the cotton gin or whatever. "There's a bunch of us now and barter isn't cutting it anymore" is a technical problem, not a societal one. You can solve it with coinage and banks or whatever. "The internet used to be fun and useful but now it sucks" is a societal problem, not a technical one. You can't solve it with a federated twitter clone or yet another secure messaging protocol or whatever.
- senordevnyc 3mo agoWhat? Why? Why would those first two be "technical problems" that we can "solve" with innovation, but that last example isn't? What makes something a technical problem vs. a societal problem?
- bayindirh 3mo agoGenerally, if you're targeting behavior of the people or the masses, you're targeting a societal problem. People bullying other people is not a technical problem. People driving dangerously is not a technical problem. People shoplifting is not a technical problem. All of them have different reasons deep down, and preventing the symptom doesn't solve the problem. When you effectively prevent bullying, the bully might damage something else or may do self-harm to soothe their demons. Same for people driving dangerously or have to shoplift to survive. When you cure the root problem, which is generally harder BTW, the problem you're technically trying to prevent disappears, too. Hope this helps.
- ifh-hn 3mo agoPeople have been trying to use technology to solve the problems technology since this began. Your solution is probably the worse pipe dream I've ever seen articulated. You state that current alternatives are too rubbish because you want to use the services you seem to despise. And your willing to pin your hopes on yet another technology to do it because this one is definitely trustworthy and has your best interests at heart... Naivety doesn't quite cover this.
- echelon 3mo agoWhy is everyone here so myopic? Why pay Kagi or whatever at all? How can you trust them or anyone, if this is your belief? Why even pay your ISP? Just go back to candlelight and corn flakes and stay away from radio waves. You'd better not own a smart phone if this is truly how you feel about the world, because it clashes with what you just said. Come on.
- senordevnyc 3mo agoIt's a boring answer, but nerds are cynical because they think it makes them look smarter.
- ifh-hn 3mo agoSo people that don't agree with you are myopic? You solution is to hope that a better technology will be invented that won't be subject to what every technology before it has been subject to. You rally against "the algorithm" and beg for another algorithm to save you. You want to live in a filter bubble and not be challenged on you believes. I can't think of anything worse, but I wish you the best. Also I don't know what comment you read but it's clearly not mine...
- echelon 3mo agoI only have so much energy to reply to all of this negativity. Half of it is being cut off at the legs by HN filters from the constant downvotes and flagging. Downvotes and flagging for attempting to be positive and excited about tech progress. You're not going to do anything about big tech by sitting on the sidelines. I don't see anyone doing anything about it. Nobody's built websites that show people how to contact their legislators. Nobody's building alternative tech. We have a chance to use this tech to cut off the big tech overlords. I don't see how you're all missing this. We can literally build new browsers now. It reasons that we can place filters at every level of the stack to catch the stuff we don't like and prevent it from reaching us. For people who supposedly care so much about tech and privacy and digital freedoms, I just see complaints. I propose a solution to neuter big tech and you label it as a filter bubble instead of a victory. But you're probably right - I'd like to filter out every grumpy HN person with a negative outlook sentiment score and move on with my day. It'd save me time. I shouldn't be wasting any energy responding to this den of depression.
- inigyou 3mo agoWe have an agent between us and the web. It's called a web browser. Or in last millennium terms, a user-agent. You can customize it by installing extensions, unless you chose to use Chrome, where extension support is limited.