Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

Re:Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what... by YossarianFrPrez on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:30PM (#27664791)

What a great question. One of two things:

A) Establish the expectation that websites "close" in the middle of the night for ~5-6 hours, local time / for each timezone. I don't know if would best be done via cultural influence -- giving talks, writing essays, personal communication, testifying / making inroads with politicians -- or via creating some sort of protocol. The idea is to prevent the unhealthier aspects of internet binging and screen addiction.

B) Establish the expectation that internet comments are transcriptions of voice recordings. I.e. to leave a comment, you have to call a phone number and leave a message which then gets transcribed as "the comment." In order to respond or reply to a post or a thread, you have to listen to the message and tone of voice of the person you are replying to. I don't think this would solve every internet dialogue, but it'd promote healthier interactions and less division.

In my book, the largest problems with the internet are techno-cultural, not technological.

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Re:Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what... by uniqueuid on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:48PM (#27665062)

Fun fact, closing websites do exist among ultra-orthodox (esp. haredi) jewish communities in Israel.

You can read a bit about how it works in practice on the web.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ultraorthodox-jews-are-co_b_1...

http://www.hareidi.org/en/index.php/Hareidi.org%27s_Kosher_I...

Background: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.14318/hau7....

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Re:Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what... by dentemple on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:37PM (#27664871)

Regarding A, for which timezones? Any attempt to narrow browsing time would ultimately fail as soon as the web goes global.

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Re:Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what... by YossarianFrPrez on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:41PM (#27664907)

Good question. Ideally, each user's timezone would be required information. The server would check to see if the requesting user's local time meant that the website should be "open" for them.

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Re:Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what... by bmcooley on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:45PM (#27664991)

Honestly this would probably just make VPN services more widely used to workaround shutdowns.

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Re:Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what... by YossarianFrPrez on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:57PM (#27665196)

True, unless the timezone was tied to each user's accounts. The website doesn't have to "not work" it just has to return a page that says something to the effect of "we are closed for business."

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Re:Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what... by sithlord on Monday June 28, 2021 @03:21PM (#27666497)

So a user couldn't just change their timezone? What if they moved?

Also who is this to protect? The user? What if they work midnights or their days are backwards?

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Re:Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what... by touristtam on Tuesday June 29, 2021 @07:28AM (#27674370)

There are cases where the business shouldn't promote the use of its website at odd hours (child protection, gambling addiction and other similar things).

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Re:Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what... by YossarianFrPrez on Friday July 02, 2021 @01:06PM (#27714084)

Exactly

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Re:Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what... by bruce343434 on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:44PM (#27664977)

A minute of silence for those with unusual circadian rythms.

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Re:Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what... by bruce343434 on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:45PM (#27664995)

Regarding the second point, it would probably just make people say things like "you sound fat". It's still anonymous enough. In fact, people say mean things in public all the time. It seems some people are just inherently mean.

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Re:Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what... by YossarianFrPrez on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:54PM (#27665136)

I don't disagree. The main problem I'm attempting to solve is the non-anonymous case. Even discussions on social media, where people are either "friends" or have the same shared interest, still devolve into discourse where few come away satisfied. Instead, many people feel either negatively critiqued or that other posters "just don't get it." Every time this happens, the sense of group cohesion frays a little.

I see this is as a problem of the medium of discussion more than anything else.

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Re:Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what... by NewNetNow on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:38PM (#27664882)

Lurker here. These ideas, especially #2, sound interesting for a discord-style (when they did embedded comments only) startup.

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