“Facebook has destroyed the open web”
ibtimes.co.uk
ibtimes.co.uk
What FB has done is made it easier for the lazy to connect with and stay within their own interest groups. FB has made it easy for people to ignore negative information with tons of cat pictures (I am as guilty as anyone for that) and cheerful little meaningless quotes. It's made it easier to post misinformation and spread it quickly.
But none of that has destroyed the internet. The internet (or more specifically, information) was going to get harder to find and navigate anyway, once you turn it loose on a few billion people.
Sure, in the early days, you could encapsulate 75% of existing websites in one directory, but thanks to the efforts of spammers, link farmers, and other lowlife, in addition to the efforts of well-meaning people, and faulty and well-working search algorithms, it's a mess.
But it was going to happen and FB is not to blame for it. If they are to blame for it, we all equally share the guilt.
plus. it's blue. people like blue.
I observe that this is increasingly no longer true. Links no longer show you when you have visited them. Chains of 301s are common. Tracking links are now the norm. The link text almost never is where you are actually going. Pages automatically redirect you based on a ton of probed information (mobile, desktop, tablet, logged in to G+, logged into facebook, etc), and even normal browser shortcuts to interact with them are no longer working correctly with so many weird effing span and divs being recast into "links" that never work right, in css of all things.
No no. The modern hyperlink is totally busted. I blame the framework hockers and the halfass web"app" community.
Congratulations for that phyrric victory.
If one however desires even a little bit of control of their browsing experience, the hyperlink and the modern web are broken. It seems to be impossible to click a link and display a simple text with some images nowadays on the web, even if that's the great majority of the available content. Something will break - one will be treated either with an empty white page, missing menus, missing styles, etc.
The only alternative that I could think of is if there was a third-party who resolved the redirects. Something akin to a Bitcoin tumbler.
But, not all links like this are trying to track individuals (like ads), rather "engagement" or marketing sources (A FB post might get one tracking link whereas a tweet might get another). These are legitimate questions that aren't necessarily nefarious. But at the same time, it does go against the spirit, if not the meaning, of "hyperlink".
Facebook reminds me of AOL. People who had AOL had no idea of anything outside of AOL. I had to show many how to get out of AOL and they were astonished there was so much more.
If Facebook was an ISP it truly would be the new AOL.
FB will be killed by its successor soon - possibly within five years, certainly within 10.
Jury's out on whether it will be founded in the US, or whether it will even need a web browser.
(I strongly suspect the answer to both questions will be "no.')
Seems pretty close...
That sheds light on a much scarier issue: Google.com has effectively BECOME the internet.
How do you find information that isn't indexed by Google? There has to be a better way than just word of mouth, but all other alternatives afforded by current tech will just shift the problem to some other megaportal.
I don't see why there has to be. Word of mouth is probably the best method possible.
My idea, which may be a bit off the wall, is really to go down a path whereby you only index a subject. So node.js guys just give a search engine that indexes node.js material, Python people index Python articles, short-haired cat people index only short-haired cats... They key is to make the subject you are indexing manageable in scope. So you keep it small.
The key things that Google have IMO is how good they are at locating documents, and ensuring that they have mapped out their search to what is relevant. But I think that for those who know what they are looking for, specific indexing of a particular domain of knowledge would make searching more relevant.
Now the next steps are to find a way to discover this content. But in this case, submitting to the smaller indexers would be helpful. Take HN for instance - in the grand scheme of things it's a big index of stuff that interests hackers, now if you indexed HN that would be a search engine based on user submitted links.
Then you could figure out a way for indexes to collaborate with each other.
What it would in essence do would be to democratize search. And it would penalise information that wasn't in the open, though someone could make it work by paying for links to good content and charging a monthly fee to use their index. The index would be a broker, but the more reputable it is the more content it can index. And the market would stabilise on a price - if you can't afford it, you use a competitor, of you could make your own.
It would need a framework for decentralised collaboration, and perhaps a good mechanism for the indexing and displaying search results.
Just an idea. Might not be practical!
In regards to the parent comment's concerns about Google, though, I don't think he is saying that their indexing algorithm needs to be improved upon, or even that we need an alternative to it. I read it as "Google, in its ability to select sites for indexing, can control people's access to information and can therefore manipulate thought".
The problem is that Google has so much power and inherent ulterior motives as a company that make it potentially threatening.
I think that's why you're pitching this project to democratize search, but I think what you just pitched is a Google/Reddit hybrid--or basically a search engine that only gives results from a selected subreddit. Which could be cool, and I don't know if that exists or not.
However, I think the solution to displacing Google from being the internet itself is to make an open source search engine that is equally good as a search tool, but can sell itself on the basis that it doesn't track you or record your information (or if it does, there is no way for a human person to access your information).
I think the solution is DuckDuckGo.
I've noticed this in schools where Google products are used. The kids are now equating Google with the entire internet. They don't know anything about email - they just know Gmail. That's what is kind of scary to me. It's frustrating at home as well because while I am doing my best to educate the kids about technology, they are afraid to do anything outside of the Googlesphere and think things are broken if it doesn't perform just like the Google product. that's what I'm worried about. They don't see anything outside of the Google walled garden.
The future of technology is probably going to wind up being entirely based on walled ecosystems anyway. If you own a MacBook, it's already very enticing to tie that in with an iPhone, etc. It's all about tight integration. I'd also say there is not a single existing system that exists yet which provides the kind of tight integration I'm dreaming of. I'm talking about the kind of system where you buy a home and every single piece of technology in it is integrated. Truly and completely integrated, not the pseudo lame stuff we have today.
HN types love to rant against the Walled Garden™, as if it's by definition some terrible thing. The only reason negative aspects even exist today is because the walled gardens we have today are woefully incomprehensive. When the day comes that you can buy into an all-in-one ecosystem that actually takes care of everything you need, there will be no problem. I would happily "lock into a walled garden" if that garden contains every variety of plant known to mankind.
Back to responding more directly to the parent. It just doesn't matter if someone knows Google and only Google. People use what works for them, and why shouldn't they? When the day comes that Google vanishes or word spreads that you shouldn't use it anymore, your average citizen will easily migrate to whatever other service is the most popular replacement. The average person does not need to know what SMTP is; they need a system that lets them type in their message and hit "send". This is a good thing, not some terrible sadness.
Whether that's better for consumers is debatable (plethora of choice isn't necessary a good thing), but devs definitely give up a lot of power and leverage to the landlord.
"Apps" from a large arsenal of companies instantly throws away any concept of uniformity. My bet is that the future holds fully walled gardens. To the point where, for example, every game you play will be released by the company that created the platform you choose. Even if it's just ports of a base game, that port will be released by the system creator, not the game developer/publisher. We just need the creators of the ecosystem to prioritize developing the entire system itself, rather than the current situation where they rely on 3rd party devs and attempt to reign control over them.
From what we've seen thus far, I am simply not confident that any platform will ever provide a fully immersive and integrated experience if it relies on SDKs and supposed "standards". The idea of a "standard" that actually gets followed to the letter is so far a mythical beast. I don't want my home automation system made up of devices from 20 different companies doing their "best" to interoperate properly. I want a single company to provide all the devices, and have them work flawlessly.
And the plentiful misguided sympathizers making up excuses for them are muddying up the waters even more. I see you're at the point where "walled gardens are good". That freedom does have a certain flavor of slavery, doesn't it?
Actually, look at game consoles. They have always been the original "walled gardens", but, they still allowed users to install third-party software through physical media.
And people have been happy with that arrangement.
But if you like Google+ more than Facebook for sharing messages, links, and pictures with friends and family, how do you do so if they're all only on Facebook? (Obviously this works either way).
The bit that really disappoints or bugs me is how something like email is still generally interoperable between providers so each individual user can pick whatever provider appeals to them, or even host their own. With closed social networks, you essentially must have an account on a given service in order to use them. If you want to use a different provider due to personal preference or some feature offered by one and not another, you either have to convince all of your contacts to switch over or accept that it's not happening.
At least with AOL email or whatever you could start using Yahoo or Hotmail or Gmail and continue to send messages to your mom and your boss and your doctor's office even if they stubbornly clung to AOL. Today, when better social networking services and applications come out, you can try them out but (as Google+ showed) they become pretty sparse when a majority of users are happy to stay with what they know and there's no way you'll get most to consider using a different service.
Completely agree.
And let's choose something else similar, for the sake of argument.
Google dominates web search at 64% of searches: https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Market-Rankings/comScore-R...
Post anyone could write: "That's so unfair, because Google owns more than half of all searches. They get to decide what you find on the web!"
In fact, the argument of the bias bubble is the one that Duck Duck Go uses, and I don't disagree with it. Google's results are biased.
However, does the fact that Google can and does hide some (or even many) relevant pages on the web from you make them responsible for "closing the web"?
Of course not! Without Google, instead of random but relevant websites and blogs providing answers when you search, you'd probably go to a centralized sites for information or data, which could be biased and ignorant.
Without Google, think of all of the internet companies that never would have grown because they would never have been found.
Back to Facebook. Sure, many on Facebook just share photos, comments, have discussions, etc. But, there are a lot of links shared and pages you can like to get more links in your feed. As a Facebook user, I see much more new content and read information I would have been unaware of if I'd only been reading HN or a news website. I also share the best stories from HN, exposing a number of my friends to articles they would not have otherwise read.
In my opinion, Facebook hasn't closed the web. In fact, it seems that the web would have been more closed if Facebook and Google had never existed.
Not on Facebook, which is the whole point. You can paste URLs into Facebook, but they aren't hypertext.
the same lazies who refuse to install linux i presume. The lazies who refuse to become experts and share your ideas of the world. This culture, too lazy to create a decent user experience- deserves to suffer.
The web and FB has made us dumber- we point and click and no longer have to search and think.
That is a bold and baseless statement.
However, it might be different in emerging markets where phones are the primary platform and FB may be dominating, not really sure if that's true but certainly different from the US.
Whenever WhatsApp is shut down in Brazil, a local chimes that it's used everywhere, even by emergency medical service personnel.
That should cause one some uneasy feelings...
More generally, populism by itself does not threaten democracy. It's when the people that elect demagogues let those demagogues destroy public institutions that democracy is undermined. But it's the people that are at fault here, they are the ones that let themselves get hoodwinked.
Napoleon destroyed the French Republic. But the French were absolutely complicit and just let him do it because they were hungry for empire. All of Europe was like that back then and she wasn't cured of that disease until WW2 showed them how utterly stupid warmongering in the Industrial age was.
You argument is flat out wrong.
YOU choose how you interact with the rest of the world. You may have those choices thrust in your face, but ultimately, it's up to you to decide.
Unless your IP and DNS are somehow restricted by your ISP, then you have access to all the tools you will need. If they are, there's probably little I can do to help you.
And nobody will read them if you don't integrate with Facebook and other social media--where you will be censored.
> But it's the people that are at fault here, they are the ones that let themselves get hoodwinked.
Did you really claim that scam victims are to blame when they get scammed, and not the scammers? I'm all for avoiding naiveté, but that doesn't excuse the actions of manipulative people and organizations.
That's not an issue with Facebook, it's the natural consequence of being popular. Things are popular because the public likes them. You can't say that something being powerful because the public made them powerful is undemocratic. Either you're giving the public what they want or you're not. Dethroning Facebook would be profoundly undemocratic. Facebook is a public institution, albeit under private management.
> Did you really claim that scam victims are to blame when they get scammed, and not the scammers?
The people are bigger than the politicians. Politicians have to, at some point, give the people what they want. The days where you can brutally put down rebellions is over. Not even CCP can get away with it. Napoleon could not have given Europe war if the French truly didn't want war.
Napoleon did not have to scam the French, they went into it willingly.
Democracy is the progressive march of what most people want over what a few people want. If what most people want is stupid, democracy will not save you from that.
When a private institution has so much power there need to be rules put in place that make sure they won't abuse that power to the detriment of everyone else. Democracy is about people, not the rights of corporations.
Your claims about the power of the people are amusingly misguided as reading a little bit about history will tell you. Pointers: propaganda, public opinion manipulation.
Multinational corporations are inherently more democratic, more public, than governments. A government derives its capacity to operate from violence, you are forced to pay taxes.
A corporation has to be accountable to a marketplace, and must operate within the law of countries it operates in. Markets are ultimately more powerful than governments, that's why authoritarians want to tell people what they can sell to whom and how. Markets provide the people with ways to get things that don't come from the government, that's how they undermine authority.
I stand by my statement that Facebook is a public institution. It's publicly traded, you can buy voting shares and get a say in how the company is run. Of course Facebook is accountable to its user base, that's ultimately where they get all their revenue from. Facebook is more accountable than democratic governments are, you can't choose to not pay your taxes. Also, what is the practical difference between public and private management?
Manipulating public opinion is ridiculously hard and only the most hardcore authoritarian states are capable of doing so effectively. Even then it's a cat and mouse game, the truth has ways of getting out.
You have drunk so much of the capitalist Kool-aid that your brain is no longer receiving oxygen.
> A corporation has to be accountable to a marketplace
This is not democracy, it's plutocracy.
1. Facebook isn't responsible for the bad things they do because people let them do what they're doing.
2. Therefore Facebook isn't bad.
3. Therefore people should keep letting Facebook do what they're doing.
Do you really not see the problem here?
The fact that Facebook doesn't send pure hyperlinks but, instead, links that funnel through Facebook to be authenticated and tracked, is extremely annoying and dangerous to a free and open web.
Complacency and intolerance of other ideas is and always will be the issue.
Here's the thing, I get to see what events my friends are going to, which usually end up being really fun and not something I would have found out about otherwise. So nowadays I only use facebook to find and management events to attend.
This guy truly is, the world's biggest hypocrite. </rant>
Zuck is 32 later this week.
I know where I'd place my money.
"Like anyone can even know that."
It will have it's time, in due time. Hyperlinks are not dead.
Facebook is delaying it by playing big in International markets and in developing countries but the social aspects can't be outrun and won't change, as I said, it's a BIG fad but it's a fad and it will die a fad's death in due time.
Why do think Zuck is pushing the Facebook private Internet in the developing world so hard? He's not stupid, he sees the writing on the wall.