News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by bediger4000 on Thursday June 24, 2021 @12:53PM (#27620336)
We'd be better off without the ad-supported web sites. Twitter, facebook, pinterest, ad-supported web sites centralized something that was arguably better when decentralized. Every web site should be artisanal, a labor of love, like a lot of the better blogs, or subscription based. Content wouldn't be homogenized for mass consumption.
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by viro on Thursday June 24, 2021 @12:59PM (#27620453)
you don't seem to understand... This would have the exact opposite result.. I would pay for a Twitter and YouTube sub and every other website could fuck all the way off. I'm not paying separately for 40 other random sites.
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by nonameiguess on Thursday June 24, 2021 @01:39PM (#27621176)
I believe the claim is this wouldn't happen. You wouldn't need to separately pay for 40 sites if they were content to have a few thousand users each like the old days. Hosting that really is close enough to free that people would still do it. Keep communities small. You don't need to network with 3 billion people.
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by fsflover on Thursday June 24, 2021 @04:49PM (#27623552)
> Keep communities small. You don't need to network with 3 billion people.

With federated platforms like Mastodon, PeerTube, PixelFed, you technically can network with 3 billion people, despite the lack of the central server.

Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by nonameiguess on Thursday June 24, 2021 @05:57PM (#27624352)
Of course, and that's another option, too. Make truly distributed applications that don't rely upon servers you own serving everyone, and you pay no hosting costs at all.
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by bediger4000 on Thursday June 24, 2021 @01:03PM (#27620542)
Good! Consumer choice in action, Invisible Hand of the Marketplace would help weed out the weak or harmful businesses. Ad supported web sites can be really harmful. Direct, monetary feedback would allow us to have more say in things.
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by viro on Thursday June 24, 2021 @01:06PM (#27620587)
it would also kick poor people off the internet
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by goodpoint on Thursday June 24, 2021 @02:37PM (#27622008)
The very opposite: 99% of Internet use is to consume/download content rather than produce/upload.

Ads and heavy websites are slow and expensive to browse for half of human population due to poor connectivity.

Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by lp0_on_fire on Thursday June 24, 2021 @01:31PM (#27621028)
By that logic the status quo says poor people can only participate on the internet if they subject themselves to ever-increasing digital surveillance under the guise of "advertising"
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by viro on Thursday June 24, 2021 @01:39PM (#27621173)
Thats a rather fancy way to say. poor people can't afford to pay a sub for every ad supported site they use.
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by goodpoint on Thursday June 24, 2021 @02:43PM (#27622087)
Repeating this point ad nauseam does not make it true.
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by viro on Thursday June 24, 2021 @03:19PM (#27622591)
you know what makes it true? common sense. You're detached from reality if you don't think this will now have a massive negative effects on poor people.
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by Nicksil on Thursday June 24, 2021 @03:35PM (#27622761)
What are some of those negative effects.
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by viro on Thursday June 24, 2021 @04:03PM (#27623073)
the inability to gain access to anywhere near the same level of content they did before. Is a quick and simple one.
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by Nicksil on Thursday June 24, 2021 @06:35PM (#27624802)
What type of content? I can't imagine anything necessary would sit behind a paywall given this scenario.
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by viro on Thursday June 24, 2021 @07:16PM (#27625154)
Spotify and YouTube
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by Nicksil on Thursday June 24, 2021 @07:30PM (#27625258)
>Spotify and YouTube

That's entertainment or otherwise nonessential, no?

Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by viro on Thursday June 24, 2021 @08:54PM (#27625882)
Most of the internet is technically non nonessential.
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by gpm on Thursday June 24, 2021 @01:38PM (#27621151)
I don't think it would, anymore than poor people are already kicked off the internet by the cost of devices and an ISP.

Some of the best parts of the internet are already free despite the option to monetize them with ads (e.g. wikipedia), if ads weren't an option, I think you would see many more spaces like that popping up.

It's cheap enough to run a server that people frequently do so without expecting compensation. Not everything needs to be paid.

Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by netr0ute on Thursday June 24, 2021 @01:39PM (#27621161)
The sites that actually have something good to say will never block out poor people by virtue of their owners being smart enough to factor this into their costs.
Re:International coalition calls for action against surveill... by tomjen3 on Thursday June 24, 2021 @03:53PM (#27622982)
If we would all be better of if facebook etc didn't exist, doesn't it stand to reason that poor people would also be better of?

Open street map and wikipedia runs of of donations/free labor so I don't think poor people would be kicked of those. Google would presumably come with your internet subscription, so that would be factored in for most libraries where the poor would access the internet.