Comment by pascalxus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pascalxus | Hacker News Reader

As the article points out, The power google is quite scary. The problem is, we depend on it for too many things. I think the solution is to diversify our usage of it. Perhaps, use a different email service, or start using Bing. Find, something else to replace google docs. By diversifying, we reduce our risk.

Same for facebook, perhaps start using a different social network and messaging apps. Sure, no one will see my posts, that is until I send them a good old fashion link, to a photo of my cute daughter.

we need those "PODS" from Tim Burner's Lee's https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/ways-to-decentralize-the-w...

In this model, all your data belongs to you. Any social network you allow or visit can make use of the data, but it all still belongs to you. And you'll be able to switch from Social network to social network or document provider(docs, spredsheets software) as easily as changing your socks.

And we don't have to completely replace GOOG and FB, we should have to offer alternatives and reduce the cost of switching - That's the key to preventing these services from turning Evil.

Are there any social networks out there currently that do this yet?

I'm hosting my own mail, and running my own server, but I know this is not a viable route for the generic public. Although tools like Yunohost[1] exists for this specific reason.

Telegram is nice for instant messaging: it's simple, cross-platform, does well with resources, and run by a non-profit org. Yes, russians might be spying on it. FB/G are spied by others. Meh. (There's Signal as well, but I like my SMS separated.)

Google Docs are terrible anyway: slow, lacking lots of features. Libreoffice or (god forbid!), installed M$ Office - and share the docs on, for example, Dropbox.

However, it's already very hard to tell people what the web used to be. Just read the entry "I’m 22 years old and what is this."[2] - web devs being in the business for <10 years may not even remember how it was before G or FB. I'd welcome any ideas how to address this.

[1]: https://yunohost.org/ [2]: https://medium.com/@tylrfishr/im-22-years-old-and-what-is-th...

But, with telegram, I don't see a way to message people on FB messenger. so that means, I'll need to get them to switch: tough sell.

I'm aware. If you mention though, that this doesn't suck their battery (or listen in to their conversation) they might think about it, though I'm having a hard time making people care as well.

Someday someone's gonna make a IM <-> FB gateway.

Unfortunately FB will then change the API to block the gateway.

It's not in their interest to allow open access to their messaging service. The current status quo means you have to be in their app or on the website to access your contacts and view their ads!

Absolutely, but it doesn't mean the arms race will never start. :)

Most people who use telegram haven't heard of Signal, most people who use Signal won't touch telegram with a ten foot pole.

I pay about $1/month for a decent email provider. There is also still free ad-supported competition out there. That's not the problem why people are all at gmail.

The bigger hurdle are the email clients. Both on desktop, android and as webmail, email clients are mostly fairly bad (as in: just as good as the one I had nearly twenty years ago). It's hard to keep up with Gmails UX and features, especially since open source software isn't exactly known for stellar UX.

I have to agree on this. I have yet to find an email client that works as elegantly as Inbox (which is obviously Gmail-exlusive).

I have been considering migrating away from Gmail, but it is a bit daunting, mostly due to all of the logins I will need to update (if that is even possible) and because I would have to go back to manual sorting and categorizing.

I just recently completed migration from Gmail. It does take a while because there are so many things you might forget to update and then you're like, "oh crap," I changed my email address and for some strange reason LastPass didn't store the password.

Yup, I self-host email, blog and all my stuff except with Cloudron [1]. I use wire instead of telegram.

One challenge (at least amongst my circles) is that people do not seem to value diversity and are for some reason obsessed with mono-culture. For example, they are not willing to try another docs or email or phone provider. Even if they try something new, they are quick to jump to opinions in mere seconds (for example, I asked a friend to try mattermost[2] instead of slack and he wanted to go on about how the shade of blue was unappealing...). Many of my friends are also truly vested into converting their entire household into apple or google products (i.e one of them). If apple made a mattress tomorrow, they would immediately buy it :)

[1]: https://cloudron.io [2]: https://about.mattermost.com/

i think what we need is another type of walled garden, what i'm calling a freedom garden. a complete alternative to APPL and GOOG that has media, devices, apps, &c.

free software projects and linux distributions have been around for years, but the focus is often on compatibility and familiarity. i say, we throw all of that in the trash. we need fresh ideas, fresh designs, and interfaces. interesting new devices and interaction models. app stores that engage creators as a revenue channel. there's no reason why liberty and profit should be at odds. [0]

i especially think that we need to rethink how we develop applications. clouds are useful, but why are the developers on the hook for all of that compute? i think we need to radically simplify the tools we use for provisioning compute resources in a way that allows users to leverage all of their compute resources and easily attach more on-demand. this echoes back to plan 9, which has this idea of creating a virtual system out of many hosts.

we're just getting started, and there are a lot of challenges ahead of us. if any of this sounds interesting or fun, maybe you want to get involved with our nonsense. [1]

[0]: https://developer.elementary.io/

[1]: https://heropunch.io/join.html

It's not about applications, it's about hardware. The corporate giants control the mobile hardware.

read the website, bud. we're tackling that one too.

https://www.heropunch.io/tomo/cybredeck/

most of the action is happening in #heropunch:matrix.org i'm on the os side, actually. @mlg:matrix.org is tackling the hardware. we're starting simple with off the shelf parts, but if people like our shit we are def interested in scaling up to make more advanced devices.

also, if you would like to back something that exists right now there's the librem 5

https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

Amazing. I hope you pull it off.

In my circle I've found a social stigma surrounding search engine. I use DuckDuckGo, and I've had numerous friends and co-workers essentially retort: DuckDuckGo? Why don't you use Google?

It's amazing how Google as a search engine has developed such brand loyalty to the point that people don't think there can be any alternatives. Personally, I like DDG's results better, and I also simply like diversifying. But as I said, even which search engine you use is highly stigmatized.

People should really be open to trying new things once in a while. How can people be certain that some search engine X isn't better than Google's engine when they haven't even tried it? Same goes for browsers -- years ago Chrome won people over with its speed, and friends I speak to still have this perception that it's the fastest browser out there, when some tests would begin to suggest its losing that edge (no pun intended).

I hosted my own mailserver for years then at about the same time email to Outlook.com and GMail started to bounce due to blacklisting. I complied with all the SPF requirements but no luck. Turns out you can be blacklisted by simply being on the same network as another blacklisted server. Guilt by association. Try getting a human response from these faceless corporate giants.

Neither of those services blacklist based on bad netblock neighbors anymore. The only one I've seen to that in years is AT&T, and it has only been a problem with them sporadically.

Consumer's can't solve this from the ground up.

What's needed is to prevent certain kinds of key acquisitions.

The law around acquisitions is too permissive in an age of network effects; acquisition laws were fine pre-internet but don't solve their intended purpose anymore.

Normally, the market corrects against the biggest players because the biggest players are slow to change culture and their business.

But, acquisitions are the mechanism by which the big players are preventing themselves from being disrupted by smaller, more nimble players.

If the big players can simply buy up any new comers (who will want a deserved pay-out for their efforts) on the scene, they maintain complete control regardless of what consumers want.

Otherwise, any "alternative practices" you try to foster will simply be crushed, if they ever become a large enough threat.

https://stratechery.com/2017/why-facebook-shouldnt-be-allowe...

The problem of monopolies and cartels isn't new. It's systemic and why government enforced market regulation is necessary to protect the interests of citizens. The newer question is perhaps how you effectively nationalise or even just police organisations that are as international in their operations as google or fb. The most effective approach so far is simply to ban them in your country and grow your own as the Chinese have done.

The problem now through is that these guys are "effective" monopolies, but they aren't monopolies according to the court's definition because they can always claim that the consumer doesn't have to use their service, they have choice to use some other dinky competitor.

The problem is that in the internet age, it is not in controlling supply but in effectively unlimited demand created by combination of zero marginal cost to add customers and network effects of the internet.

> In this model, all your data belongs to you.

I wonder at what point companies decided they could own our data, and we agreed to it.

If I write something on a post-it note and give it to my coworker, will 3M rear its head and demand ownership of that information? No, of course not. So why do we allow Google to own our information when we use their software and/or office equipment?

Convenience.

You can approximate the point at which companies decided to own our data by looking at when they transitioned from client-side software with local file storage and open protocols to web services with proprietary protocols.

Microsoft is still in the process of transitioning. Google, Facebook and Amazon likely never had a data-agnostic phase in the first place.

I wonder at what point companies decided they could own our data, and we agreed to it.

It's been a boiling frog situation, but it's not so much that they decided they could own it as that it's been established that we don't. It helps to think of these companies as scavengers picking up the data we trail behind us on our travels. Even so, by at least the Target breach (2013) the message has been that we have no claim or recourse.

I'm not sure I understand how the PODS would keep your data from becoming centralized. If you allow a service to read data from your PODS, they could simply save it in their own database.

but because the data belongs to you, you could still jump to another social network or another application, every easily. You wouldn't be locked out of your own data, if FB banned you. And if everyone else was doing it too, you'd still be able to socialize with everyone else by going onto any social network of your choice.

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