You agree with the sentiment of the article but then you're muddying the waters and shifting the discussion from Big Data companies like Google and Facebook to some abstract ideal of freedom and openness. The only "misleading language" that I see here belongs to you. The author is very clear about what disease has infected software development and the internet.

I don't remember many spyware as a service and data collection software platforms ~10 ago. The freedom to not have your information collected, analyzed, stored forever sold off and used against your interests WAS there.

I remember extended discussions on Usenet etc about commercialization of the Internet. Not long after Eternal September, as I recall. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Internet of Tim's dreams still exists. Several of them, really. But they're tiny, with relatively few users. What people now call the Internet is a horrorshow of predators and prey. So it goes. Natural selection rules.

And greedy algorithms always fail to reach max optimization.

Balance is the gist of the article.

I can't possibly stay sane _and_ write something if I have to account for every possible reception by every possible buyer of that data. There are too many variables in play, and the data is too easily bought and sold. If we don't regulate, the least scrupulous agent will overtake the competition and it's Thunderdome beyond that.

Do you want to joust for your supper, because I don't.

Perhaps Ethereum is the way to an open internet?

That's one way, sure. But there is no the way, I think.

What we have is just what's won in the market.

On the flip side, I remember arguments twenty years ago about how the owner of a mail server had a fundamental human right to read all the mail that passed through her server. That the processor and hard drive were her property and that any government intervention that stopped that sysadmin from reading, saving, and distributing any of the messages that passed through was the first step to an Orwellian dystopia.

Seems correct, on the assumption that all users of that mail server understood those terms, and that by entering a contract that, for example required anonymous usage, she gave up that right.

i.e. rights can be voluntarily waived by contract, and users must have the choice to choose who handles their mail, or what conditions (contracts) the agents must abide by to be permitted the job.

I concur. Parent's post was interesting, but if we narrow down to datamining and surveillance, it has gotten a whole lot worse to a degree that is beyond appreciable.

Yup. It'd be like someone stealing your letters from the mailbox, copying the contents, and sending that data to the highest bidder.

Never underestimate the ability of people to romanticise a past that never existed.

In agreement with your comment allow me the indulgence of posting a favorite passage from the great Don Quixote:

After don Quixote had satisfied his stomach, he took some acorns in his hand, and, examining them with great care, raised his voice to speak words like these: “What a happy time and a happy age were those that the ancients called Golden! And not because gold—which in this our Age of Iron is so valued—was gotten in that fortunate time without any trouble, but rather because the people who lived then didn’t know the two words yours and mine! In that holy age all things were commonly owned. To find their daily sustenance, they had only to raise their hands and take it from the robust oaks, which liberally offered their sweet and ripe fruit to them. Crystal clear fountains and running rivers, in magnificent abundance, offered them their delicious and transparent water. In the fissures of boulders and in the hollows of trees, the diligent and prudent bees formed their republics and offered to any hand, without recompense, the fertile harvest of their very sweet work. The robust cork trees shed their lightweight bark without any artifice other than their own courtesy, with which people began to cover their rustic houses, built only for protection against the rigors of the heavens. Everything then was friendship, everything was harmony. The heavy plow had not yet dared to open nor visit the pious bowels of our first mother, for she, without being forced, gave everywhere from her fertile and broad bosom that could fill, sustain, and delight the children that possessed her then.

“It was then that the simple and beautiful young shepherdesses could travel from valley to valley and from hill to hill, either in braids or with their hair flowing behind, with only enough clothing to cover modestly what decency requires, and has always required. And their ornamentation was not like the Tyrian purple and silk woven in a thousand different ways that women esteem nowadays, but rather it was of intertwined green-dock and ivy, with which they carried themselves with perhaps as much dignity and composure as our courtesans do nowadays, strutting about in extravagant dresses. In those days, literary expressions of love were recited in a simple way, without any unnatural circumlocution to express them.

“Fraud, deceit, and wickedness had not as yet contaminated truth and sincerity. Justice was administered on its own terms and was not tainted by favor and self-interest, which now impair, overturn, and persecute it. Arbitrary law had not yet debased the rulings of the judge, because in those days there was nothing to judge, nor anyone to be judged.

“Young women, with their chastity intact, traveled about on their own anywhere they wanted, as I’ve said, without fearing the damaging boldness or lust of others, and if they suffered any ruination it was born of their own pleasure and free will. Nowadays, in our detestable age, no young woman is secure, even though she be hidden and locked in a new labyrinth of Crete, for even there, through the cracks or borne in the air, the plague of lust finds its way in with the zeal of cursed importunity, and brings her to ruin in spite of her seclusion. As time went by and as wickedness grew, the order of knight errantry was instituted to defend young women, protect widows, and help orphans and needy people.

“I am a member of this order, brother goatherds, and I’m grateful for the hearty welcome and reception you’ve given me and my squire. For, although under natural law all living souls are obliged to show favor to knights errant, it’s still fitting that—knowing as I do you received and entertained me with no knowledge of this obligation—I should acknowledge your good will with utmost gratitude.”

All of this long speech, which could well have been spared, was given by our knight because the acorns brought the Golden Age to his memory. And he was moved to give that useless speech to the goatherds, who, without saying a single word, were listening to him open-mouthed and amazed. Sancho also remained silent as he snacked on some acorns and visited very frequently a second wineskin that had been suspended from a cork tree to make the wine cool.

That passage must have influenced Henry David Thoreau's - Walden.

Thank-you for sharing it.

This quote is going to be immortalized. It is succinct, and perfectly reflects a real problem with the human condition.

Thank-you.

The problem with succinct and clever phrases is that they can be used to shut down discussion of important issues.

It's such a great reply that people may, not wishing to appear to be one of these naive souls who romanticize a past that never existed, refrain from pointing out that it is possible to lose things from the past that did exist and were exceptionally valuable. It's even possible to have these things stolen from you.

Yes, it is certainly possible to romanticize a past that never existed. Also: the web is less open than it used to be, and Facebook had plenty to do with it.

Facebook is a latecomer to the party.

Of course it's a shady corp run by a shady guy using pretty much all the dirty tricks and techniques in the book. But the only thing that facebook had for itself was the use of actual names instead of pseudonyms even on previous similar websites such as myspace or friendster.

By the time zuckerberg launched the facemash website using people pictures without permission, google had been pioneering surveillance and centralizing for a long time (and getting a copy of the human genome among many many other very creepy things).

Google turned into an enemy of the internet when it became an ad network, but google had to balance things out as it needed the web and to appear friendly to web users.

But the story starts before google came into existence, there's the internet's original sin[1]. There was also this giant corporation trying to kill and replace the web with its own network called MSN, the microsoft network, supposed to be the "internet killer" which came preinstalled in windows 95. Let's not forget this pioneer in tracking users also launched in 1995 to sell books online under the name amazon.

The turning point starting the path leading to nowadays surveillance capitalism was may 1995 when the ban on commercial activities was lifted.

I do agree that facebook is a major offender and plays a role, but this is the case because the roots of surveillance as a business model were established and a large portion of the population who doesn't know better had now internet access.

[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/adver...

Touché.

I am in complete agreement with your comments regarding the open web.

The web is less open than it used to be, for some definitions of open.

The barriers to entry to the web nowadays are virtually zero. Anyone can get a free Wix or free WordPress site going in minutes. From their pocket computer no less!

Back when I was a lad, and access to the web was via a modem, the barriers were at least: have some technical knowledge and the right equipment.

Try getting out of your privileges and you may learn that there are places where you don't have reliable electricity, no access to a computer, or dial-up is the best internet connection available and there you'll find facebook trying to push its own version of the internet before the actual internet gets everywhere, but also google trying to offer connectivity for a similar profit based reason.

So no the barriers to entry still exist and the worst actors of the online surveillance capitalism are there.

Then again wix or wordpress are part of the very issue (centralization, giving away control of your data, etc.) the way to do it right is self hosting which is not that hard with things such as yunohost, cozy or sandstorm. The difficulty is having a symmetric bandwidth and reliable connection to the internet. Now we're dealing with another part of the issue: tier 1 operators and the cost of bandwidth.