[HN Gopher] The Public Interest Internet
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The Public Interest Internet
Author : recifs
Score : 95 points
Date : 2024-06-18 05:37 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (berjon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (berjon.com)
| recifs wrote:
| Allow me to open with a wildly speculative question: What if the
| internet were public interest technology? I mean "internet" the
| way most people understand it, which is to say our whole digital
| sphere, and by "public interest" I don't mean tinkering at the
| margins to reduce harm from some bad actors or painting some
| glossy ethics principles atop a pile of exploitative rent-seeking
| -- I mean through and through, warts and all, an internet that
| works in support of a credible, pragmatic definition of the
| common good.
| imagineerschool wrote:
| We'd start with a group of people centered around agreement on
| "credible, pragmatic definition of the common good"
|
| I'm in.
| its_ethan wrote:
| And history has no examples of times when a group of people
| centered around agreement on _their version_ of common good
| going poorly, right? Right??
| digging wrote:
| Better then to just _not_ work toward the common good?
| its_ethan wrote:
| Better to let ideas compete and build consensus than to
| surrender decision making abilities that effect everyone
| over to some arbitrary group of people that we are just
| told to trust (but don't worry they have good
| intentions).
|
| We don't currently have a select group of people who
| share a vision of "common good" making decisions for us,
| and yet things keep improving. So I'd advocate we stick
| with what we know is working, rather than the above
| surrendering of autonomy in exchange for the promise of
| some utopia..
| digging wrote:
| Ok, I suppose we were arguing different points, but I
| disagree with your arguments.
|
| > yet things keep improving
|
| I mean, that's just obviously not true.
| its_ethan wrote:
| I have no doubt you could find some metrics to show a
| recent decline in, but (on the whole) is the average
| human not better off in the year 2024 than they were in
| 1954? 1924? 1824?
|
| I do have a feeling we're not talking about the same
| thing here, so could you clarify how it's "obviously not
| true" that things have been/are improving?
| digging wrote:
| I'm referring to the internet, not the whole of human
| existence. That would be too complicated a subject to
| make any such simplistic statements on. But actually I
| also disagree with your premise that we don't have small
| corrupt groups already deciding what's "best" for
| everyone, WRT the internet or life as a whole. Just
| because they're openly motivated by greed doesn't make
| them less harmful. It's the cabals atop Google and
| Facebook which ushered in an age of absolute surveillance
| on a mass scale, how cool and fun.
| its_ethan wrote:
| I never said anything about corruption one way or
| another, I said we don't have groups with an agreed upon
| definition of "common good" - look at basically any
| healthy decision-making group (government, party planning
| committee, whatever) and you'll find two sides with
| differing definitions.
|
| I think we'd maybe both agree that Google and Facebook
| ushering in "absolute surveillance" probably came about
| from a single-minded view of "common good" within those
| companies - aka an example of a group of people aligned
| on a common good leading to things going poorly.
|
| But it's silly to think that some other group with a
| different (but also single-minded) definition of common
| good is going to somehow fix all the problems and not
| cause new, potentially worse, problems. That's what I was
| attempting to get at with my initial comment.
|
| Given that we weren't even really talking about the same
| thing from the start, and that I don't care enough to
| continue, I'm gonna opt out from this convo. Have a nice
| day though.
| Gormo wrote:
| The moment you try to define a singular "common good", you wind
| up with a variety of competing factions all putting forth their
| own wildly divergent and often contradictory notions of what
| that common good consists of.
|
| Most people have an unfortunate tendency to project their own
| values and preferences onto the world at large, and fail to
| recognize when they cross the boundary out of their own spaces
| and into other people's.
|
| Recognizing this means advancing solutions that primarily aim
| to minimize conflict among many parties, each pursuing their
| own particular concept of the good within their own boundaries,
| and avoiding trying to universalize any singular set of
| terminal values.
|
| Attempting to pursue solutions that depend on everyone agreeing
| on the same set of terminal values will always fail, and will
| often generate intense conflict that escalates well beyond the
| bounds of the original question and causes a great deal of
| collateral damage.
| mistermann wrote:
| This (the last 2 paragraphs) certainly _seems_ correct, but
| what if the fact of the matter is you have it ~backwards?
| digging wrote:
| > The moment you try to define a singular "common good", you
| wind up with a variety of competing factions all putting
| forth their own wildly divergent and often contradictory
| notions of what that common good consists of.
|
| Yes, that's called compromise. It's basically one of the
| foundations of society and civilization. It's not a blocker
| for public-interest projects.
| cheeseomlit wrote:
| 'Compromise' paints an idealistic picture, its often just a
| euphemism for 'the more powerful/entrenched party gets what
| they want by default, but they'll let the other side
| vocally express their frustration to maintain the veneer of
| an actual conversation.' What you're describing sounds like
| a top-down restructuring of the internet at large, which is
| a golden opportunity for any interested party to
| restructure it in their favor. Whoever has the means will
| do so, and it will not be motivated by public interest
| since the public are not the ones with the means. When I
| hear "an internet that works in support of a credible,
| pragmatic definition of the common good", to me that
| translates to "we're going to turn the surveillance up to
| 11 and ban encryption to combat CSAM", because that's how
| such projects pan out in reality
| digging wrote:
| Honestly, I can't even finish reading through this
| comment. This is the opposite of idealism - is there a
| word for it? You seem to be complaining that something is
| impossible because it can't be implemented in a perfect
| utopian way. Well, guess what, we already have an
| implementation of the internet that imperfectly respects
| "the public good", and it sucks. Let's imagine something
| better.
| cheeseomlit wrote:
| >You seem to be complaining that something is impossible
| because it can't be implemented in a perfect utopian way.
|
| That's not what I'm saying, in fact 'perfect utopian'
| projects are exactly what I'm expressing skepticism
| towards. The problems we have with the internet are
| mostly just symptoms of deeper societal issues, and they
| arent infrastructure problems that can be easily fixed
| like a road or bridge with some massive spending bill. If
| the US actually enforced anti-trust laws and broke up the
| tech cartels it would solve a whole lot of problems with
| the internet, but I doubt that idea would get much
| traction with whoever ends up on the 'new internet
| committee'. And I dont see it as a lack of idealism, its
| just plain pragmatism
| jujube3 wrote:
| > Honestly, I can't even finish reading through this
| comment. This is the opposite of idealism - is there a
| word for it?
|
| realism
| digging wrote:
| No, it's more like defeatism.
| mistermann wrote:
| > which is a golden opportunity for any interested party
| to restructure it in their favor. Whoever has the means
| will do so, and it will not be motivated by public
| interest
|
| What if the interested party is clever and defines "in my
| favor" to be equal to "the common good"? ;)
| atoav wrote:
| I mean to be honest something like the early social media
| platforms like myspace or even reddit up to a degree were
| public interest platforms.
|
| And back then nobody really thought all that mich about
| financing, so these spaces weren't about extracting user data
| or shaping their opinions. The algorithms were simplistic as
| hell and the timelines still deserved that name.
|
| The state runs libraries not just to give people access to
| books, but also because they are social community spaces. Why
| not provide something like that, just online. Something that
| doesn't need to make money, but provide a service that people
| can trust in a different way that a corporation.
| roenxi wrote:
| > So, say you want to create a new web standard...
|
| This and the following image have a misguided understanding of
| the market. We know how this situation plays out because we ran
| exactly that experiment in the 2000s with Firefox and IE6. Those
| market share numbers are contingent on Google doing the best
| possible job as curators insofar as the userbase can tell.
|
| If there are browser features that users want (like tabs) or web
| standards that enable Cool New Stuff (like modern JS) then users
| will go out of their way to install browsers that support them.
| Firefox got all the way to around 20-30% of the market before
| MS's control of the web collapsed and we entered the current era.
|
| The "problem" that competitors of Google face is that Google is a
| rather competent steward of web standards. Their browser engine
| is hard to compete with because it is very good, their web
| standards are hard to compete with because they are largely
| appropriate.
|
| Although I stand by a prediction I have that the next wave will
| be when a Brave-like model takes hold and the price of browsing
| the web drops from free to negative. With crypto we are surely
| getting to spitting distance of advertisers paying users directly
| to look at ads instead of paying Google to organise the web such
| that users look at ads.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| > If there are browser features that users want (like tabs)
| [...] then users will go out of their way to install browsers
| that support them.
|
| The prerequisite of this is that such a web browser exists,
| which is not a given. I'd sacrifice an arm for a web browser
| that has non-disappearing natively themed scroll bars since due
| to accessibility issues I struggle with scroll wheels.
|
| This is not a big technical ask, yet to date, the only one I've
| found that offers this is Falkon, which unfortunately stuck on
| an old version of qt's webkit port meaning a bunch of websites
| break with it.
|
| You have a lot of choices but almost all of them are the same,
| or suck; or both.
| severine wrote:
| _I 'd sacrifice an arm for a web browser that has non-
| disappearing natively themed scroll bars since due to
| accessibility issues I struggle with scroll wheels._
|
| Doesn't Firefox work at this?
|
| 1.Go to about:preferences or open the Firefox preferences via
| the UI
|
| 2.Scroll down until you get to a section titled "Browsing",
| or search for "scroll"
|
| 3.Check the setting "Always show scrollbars"
|
| ref: https://superuser.com/questions/1720362/firefox-scroll-
| bar-d...
|
| Go Marginalia!
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Problem is that it's too narrow, makes it hard to click.
| That's why I'm specifically looking for a native widget.
| tutipop wrote:
| In about:config widget.non-native-
| theme.scrollbar.size.override 20 widget.non-
| native-theme.scrollbar.style 4 widget.gtk.overlay-
| scrollbars.enabled false
|
| I even use a custom gtk.css to improve things further:
| scrollbar, scrollbar button, scrollbar slider {
| -GtkScrollbar-has-backward-stepper: true;
| -GtkScrollbar-has-secondary-forward-stepper: true;
| -GtkScrollbar-has-forward-stepper: true; min-
| width: 20px; min-height: 20px; border-
| radius: 0; }
|
| It's a shame we have to resort to this to get decent
| scrollbar behavior.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Thank you! How the hell is anyone supposed to discover
| things like this?
| zzo38computer wrote:
| Software should include documentation, which should
| mention all of the commands used there, so that you can
| know how to do it. Unfortunately, many of the settings
| are not very well documented, and the document is hard to
| find.
| Vinnl wrote:
| Good luck designing a UI that includes settings for
| scrollbar width _and other settings of that granularity_
| in which any of those settings are discoverable...
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > Good luck designing a UI [with] settings for scrollbar
| width and [similar] in which any of those settings are
| discoverable...
|
| Like Windows XP?
|
| ref: https://www.simplehelp.net/2009/08/04/how-to-
| enlarge-or-shri...
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "If there are browser features that users want (like tabs) or
| webs standards that enable Cool Stuff (like modern JS) then
| users will go out of their way to install browser that support
| them."
|
| Pretty sure that tabs were introduced by a software developer
| without any prior request from any user.
|
| Same goes for "Cool Stuff". Few users even know what JS means,
| except that if they do not use it or disable it, they will
| constantly be met with pages instructing them, even commanding
| them, to enable it or use a browser that supports it. These
| were introduced by software developers on their own initiative.
| Users will go out of their way to try to make stuff work. If a
| page instructs them to install some software, then, generally,
| they will follow the instructioins.
|
| Once users become familiar with something then they will expect
| it. That is quite different from users asking for something
| that does not exist. (Usually such requests for features are
| never filled as they would go against advertisers' interests in
| web browsers. Users want a web free of ads. Software developers
| depend on a web full ads. In this regard, users do not get what
| they want. Software developers do.)
|
| Users have little control over web browsers. Software
| developers at the advertising companies, e.g., Google, and
| their business partners, e.g. Mozilla, have the control. The
| companies serve their own interests and the interests of their
| customers who purchase online advertising service. Those
| customers are advertisers, not users.
|
| For example, browsers like Firefox and Chrome have at times
| hidden the full URL from the user in the address bar. No user
| ever requested that. Nor were any users asked if they wanted
| it. Chrome introduced a feature called FLoC. No user ever
| requested that. Nor was any user asked if they wanted it. The
| list of "features" like this is ridiculously long.
|
| Users do not get features because they "want" them. They get
| the features that software developers decide to give them,
| without prior consultation.
|
| Whether they want the features or not, they generally are stuck
| with them.
| Gormo wrote:
| > Pretty sure that tabs were introduced by a software
| developer without any prior request from any user.
|
| I'm sure many, many features were introduced by software
| developers without any prior request from users. Users then
| selected what software to use based on which of those
| features they like the best.
|
| This is how most product design works -- features are
| developed prior to being marketed, and users subsequently
| validate them or not -- which is analogous to how new
| biological phenotypes develop from random genetic mutations
| prior to being filtered through selection pressures.
|
| > Few users even know what JS means, except that if they do
| not use it or disable it, they will constantly be met with
| pages instructing them, even commanding them, to enable it or
| use a browser that supports it. These were introduced by
| software developers on their own initiative.
|
| And then users validated those introductions of new features
| and they became standard. This happened with JavaScript,
| because JavaScript enabled websites to do things users wanted
| to do. Conversely, the market _didn 't_ largely validate Web
| VBScript, Java applets, and a wide variety of other now-
| forgotten solutions for adding dynamic content to websites.
|
| > Software developers at the advertising companies, e.g.,
| Google, and their business partners, e.g. Mozilla, have the
| control.
|
| No, that's very, very incorrect. Vendors can only introduce
| products and features -- whether or not they stick around and
| develop further is up to the market, via the complex
| interplay of end users and site authors.
| bigfudge wrote:
| Chromes replacement of Firefox had more to do with
| aggressive marketing and deliberate poor performance of
| their web properties like gmail on non-Google browsers. Not
| sure how much consumer self direction was involved.
| Gormo wrote:
| > Not sure how much consumer self direction was involved.
|
| It was _entirely_ consumer self-direction, as neither
| browser was preinstalled by default on any platform, and
| all usage of either was initiated by a deliberate end-
| user choice.
|
| "Aggressive marketing" indeed only has its effect
| _through_ "consumer self-direction" as its whole purpose
| is to persuade end users to make a purposeful decision.
| hobs wrote:
| There were huge campaigns where google was paying per
| install, many of these installs were surreptitious. When
| you create standards that only play well in your garden
| then the only people making decisions are you and the
| devs writing them, the users either play along or cant
| use CORPORATE_WEB_APP - hence why IE is STILL around
| today.
| sdwr wrote:
| As a user at the time, Chrome just looked better than FF.
| It was fresh and clean. The logo was brighter, the UI was
| rounder and clearer.
|
| FF looked like a Windows 98 settings menu by comparison.
| Tiny, fiddly, cramped controls.
| hobs wrote:
| The monopoly of Chrome over the marketplace suggests you
| are wrong, with enough money to move around you can
| implement AMP for instance, nobody wanted it but everyone
| wanted the money, so they played along.
| Hasu wrote:
| > With crypto we are surely getting to spitting distance of
| advertisers paying users directly to look at ads instead of
| paying Google to organise the web such that users look at ads.
|
| Who would take that deal? Getting paid $.02 in some
| cryptocurrency to look at an ad? So that I can then maybe spend
| more money on the product being advertised? Why would I ever
| agree to that? It's a bad deal for me. Why would the ad agency
| do that? It's a bad deal for them versus paying for captive
| eyeballs.
| digging wrote:
| > So that I can then maybe spend more money on the product
| being advertised?
|
| You can spend it on anything you like, actually.
| roenxi wrote:
| > Why would I ever agree to that?
|
| You're already looking at the ad. $0.02 > $0.00, so the
| situation is a strict improvement.
| darreninthenet wrote:
| This is coming around full circle to the early days of the
| internet when people had toolbars installed on their browser
| that displayed adverts and they slowly earned pennies for the
| time they spent browsing (and seeing the toolbar adverts).
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Usually it's salesmen who want Slow New Stuff, users want fast
| interoperable software. And to force them install one electron
| app per site they need to be nagged by "we don't like your
| browser" error pages.
| Zambyte wrote:
| > Their browser engine is hard to compete with because it is
| very good, their web standards are hard to compete with because
| they are largely appropriate.
|
| Can you elaborate on what you mean when you say "good" and
| "appropriate"? Good for whom? Appropriate why?
| Terr_ wrote:
| Not OP, but the subtext I got was that Google--as a browser
| vendor--doesn't usually push features/standards so
| _obviously_ broken /harmful that the rest of the ecosystem
| rebels.
| Zambyte wrote:
| Not usually, but here is one fairly recent and high profile
| counter example
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity
| JimDabell wrote:
| They've done this repeatedly - WebUSB, Web Bluetooth,
| WebMIDI, and AMP, off the top of my head. Time and time
| again, Google have pushed a spec that both Mozilla and
| Apple reject on privacy or security grounds.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I agree it looks like what the OP is saying. And I do agree
| with the siblings, in that it's completely wrong.
|
| You could have said the same about IE during most of the
| time it lead, with the exact same rationale.
| beders wrote:
| Summary: Someone's gotta pay for the Ramen.
|
| A good start would be to demand that internet infrastructure
| operators do just that - and nothing more.
|
| Internet providers do just that one job: Routing IP. No peeking
| into my packages please.
|
| Strengthening and regulating the underlying world-wide
| infrastructure: undersea cables, transcontinental fiber networks
| - with oversight that prevents any org (public or private) from
| intercepting traffic would go a long way to protect the Public
| Interest.
|
| Alas, a pipe dream.
| mvc wrote:
| > Alas, a pipe dream.
|
| Or "tube" dream as it were.
| renegat0x0 wrote:
| I see some discussions about browsers. I think they are not that
| relevant for the current state of the Internet. I use ff, and 99%
| of the web looks, and behaves correctly.
|
| imho search engines affect page contents, and 'style' of the web.
| They define what is visible, and what is not, what is acceptable,
| and what is not. According to the chart Google controls 91% of
| that pie.
|
| I do feel that most of what is wrong with the Internet is because
| of ads. The next thing is that corporations and governments use
| it to wield, exert power. The next thing is that contemporary
| search fails spectacularly at "discovery". When have you found 'a
| new blog' via google search? When did you find a new 'music band'
| using google search? When did you found fun web radio station?
| Google is answer machine. It is not a good place to find new
| things. It is not a good place to find retro things.
|
| As a thought example lets think that alternative is possible.
| Let's say someone creates "a new search" that is successful, and
| makes Internet fun again. The corporations can sniff the trends
| and will move their presence to that space. Governments will also
| move there. They will make the pressure again on the "new
| successful search engine" to bend it to their rule. They will
| force their willpower eventually. They will perform
| enshittification again.
|
| One way to break this trend is to have Internet federated, but
| this road is not funded enough. Why would anybody invest in
| hosting parts of the Internet? I was thinking about government
| funding for such projects, but I would be really surprised if
| that road resulted in anything good.
|
| That is why I created an offline cache of the Internet [1]. I do
| not need to host it, yet anybody can use it. I can easily find
| "amiga" related domains, and start my search using just this.
|
| Do not provide web apps. Provide data. Provide files. Provide
| something that works off-line. "File over app".
|
| [1] https://github.com/rumca-js/Internet-Places-Database
| laurex wrote:
| As someone working in this space, I think standards and standard
| governance are important, but just as important are the
| economics. Right now, tech is largely dominated by platforms
| designed to extract resources in various ways, and to
| redistribute those resources to investors. To create a public
| interest internet, we will have to find a dwindling sense of
| collective and individual responsibility to our collective
| interests, and that includes recognising the very real and
| pressing economic implications of technofeudalism. That then
| means putting resources into digital public infrastructure,
| through pressure on our collectively held assets, such as pension
| funds and government procurement.
| localfirst wrote:
| The weakest link of any platform is always this: where is the
| cash on-ramp?
|
| Do you have mechanisms to play legal/jurisdiction arbitrage?
|
| What happens if a bunch of government/special interest groups
| declare your garden illegal?
|
| We are only as good as what is allowed.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| In my opinion the first step in a more decentralized internet, or
| at least a big part in being able to move in that direction would
| be a system for a global easy system for (micro)payments. That is
| preferably modelled like cash. (more anonymous). and ubiquitous,
| they can also be used in the real world.
|
| It would be nice for me, if someone reads an article I wrote and
| they give me $?0.01 $?0.001 or something. (Given that a lot of
| countries, people make vastly less money than others what
| constitutes a "micro"payment.
|
| That would of course mean that transactions were either utterly
| inexpensive or free.
|
| We would have a ubiquitous, distributed, untraceable",
| distributed means of conducting international transactions.
|
| I think we have all the technical issues solved.
|
| but
|
| No Western government will ever allow it. (Nor most other
| governments). Since it would rob them of a lot of power, and we
| would hear: "Terrorism, child pornography, bypass economic
| sanctions, election manipulation, disinformation" etc etc. The
| usual stuff.
|
| (Even though all of that is going on already....
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