> The Big Web has “users” – a term Silicon Valley has borrowed from drug dealers to describe the people they addict to their services and exploit.
Come on now, "user" as in "computer user" was a term in use since long before the web.
They requested their account deleted. I deleted it.
The article is entirely confusing. The web is intrinsically 'small' - anyone can register a domain name and run a server. And link to Github, arguably more 'big' than 'Big Web' as defined in the article. iOS apps? Centralising around site.js?
Makes no sense.
As an independent owner of a few web properties, this provides a solution, and not much of a solution, to a problem that's entirely self-prescribed.
I also noted, as there's nothing like a needle in a haystack, small-tech.org is registered via 1api.net, never heard of them before despite
> 1API GmbH is one of Europe's s leading domain name registrars and is recognized as a preeminent developer of world-class domain name platforms. 1API currently manages more than 3,000,000 Domains.
Yet Terms of Service notes
> Prices. The prices charged to you for the Services are published on the Website (“Pricing Schedule”) and are subject to modifications at 1API’s sole discretion. Unless otherwise specified, all amounts are stated herein are in Canadian Dollars.
German-Canadian registrar. Interesting.
The "computer user" term was true back then, but I am on board with Aral's definition. But now in today's world, those "computer users" are:
+ Addicted to social media whilst those companies control information and spread fake news.
+ Continuously pay for products like Netflix, YouTube and Amazon whilst those companies continue to 'recommend' you stuff you don't need.
+ Having companies spying on them and implementing dark UX patterns by A/B testing; all for sake of keeping you 'hooked' onto their products.
This type of behaviour can only be summed up as treating and addicting customers like drug users.
Aral's comparison is apt.
> Having companies spying on them and implementing dark UX patterns by A/B testing; all for sake of keeping you 'hooked' onto their products.
This applies to all commercial products.
A vast majority of commercial products don't do anything in the way of recommending additional goods and services to their users. The sale of the original good or service would be the only profit-seeking component.
Even if that was the case, is "(drug) user" a nice term compared to what else is used - like addicts, fiends, junkie, tweaker, etc. It kind of recognize the agency of addicts, instead of the dehumanisation following the other terms.
I've never met one calling them customers or clients either, I don't know that they had any term for them.
I didn't wrote that they did. Please read my comment again.
Implying that Silicon Valley borrowed this term from drug dealers is kind of silly, but the tech industry's adoption of this strange term does tie into the author's main point.
>The mass surveillance and factory farming of human beings on a global scale is the business model of people farmers like Facebook and Google. It is the primary driver of the socioeconomic system we call surveillance capitalism.
This puts me off right away. I probably partially agree, but this kind of simplistic resentment is just a turn-off for the service.