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Comment by saurik | Hacker News Reader

I personally feel like the issue is endemic: the complaint isn't about a few bad apples, but that the entire Internet is effectively funded and operated by this stuff. The core problem is an incentive structure in a game that requires government to solve as it is a public goods problem. I thereby see people complaining about the issue from a website that does the same things being complained about as an example of how deep the issue is... it isn't at all strange, nor does it to detract from the concept: if anything, I feel like it furthers the argument.

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It's not as though it's some herculean task to get your writing hosted somewhere without ads and trackers. VPS providers with 1-button WordPress installs are dirt cheap. Netlify and GH pages are free.

It's slightly easier to post stuff on something like lithub (or Facebook, Medium, etc.), but then how much does one really care about this if the excuse is that doing something about it is a minor inconvenience?

People want their cake and to eat it to. They want don't just want to get read. They wanna get paid for it. Too bad the marginal value of any particular writer is about the same as it costs for hosting them. Zero. So we all get barraged with endless crap because fools still think writing essays online is a serious career path.

(The serious career path here is making middle brow YouTube video essays. Still questionable, but at least you might get paid.)

The US government (Fed?) could create a micropayment system for the US dollar with that charges little to nothing for transactions. This would allow another whole way of pay for things on the web. Have a browser wallet with a bit of cash in it and one can pay very small amounts for things on the web as one uses it. I would love this as a consumer and creator.

The Brave browser does this

Except it is basically a way for Brave to make money first and then give some to creators. 100% should be for creators as Brave doesn't do any work for the website.

The point of the "bad apples" metaphor is that it corrupts everything.

And that's why it doesn't apply here. The point of that metaphor is predictive - "do something about these bad apples, lest they spoil the bunch". But the Web is already spoiled, covered with three layers of fungus and home to countless maggots. The time to spot and remove the "bad apples" was in the 1990s. At this point, the Web needs to be thoroughly disinfected, or torched and done anew.

> requires government to solve as it is a public goods problem

Your comment makes me think of Ostrom's Nobel-winning work on governing [natural] commonses[1]. The framework she developed over 40 years makes a case that public goods problems are often misunderstood, and often created by government. Gov does this under the guise of ostensibly attempting to support management of the shared resource, but is likely just trying to render the landscape into a format legible to gov itself. It abstracts away the power and ability to both monitor & enforce, among other things.

Her framework says collective stewardship of common-pool resources is possible under ~8 clear guiding properties: (we need to read creatively to think how this generalizes to digital commonses like the internet and data trusts)

1A. User Boundaries: Clear and locally understood boundaries between legitimate users and nonusers are present.

1B. Resource Boundaries: Clear boundaries that separate a specific common-pool resource from a larger social-ecological system are present.

2A. Congruence with Local Conditions: Appropriation and provision rules are congruent with local social and environmental conditions.

2B. Appropriation and Provision: Appropriation rules are congruent with provision rules; the distribution of costs is proportional to the distribution of benefits.

3. Collective Choice Arrangements: Most individuals affected by a resource regime are authorized to participate in making and modifying its rules.

4A. Monitoring Users: Individuals who are accountable to or are the users monitor the appropriation and provision levels of the users.

4B. Monitoring the Resource: Individuals who are accountable to or are the users monitor the condition of the resource.

5. Graduated Sanctions: Sanctions for rule violations start very low but become stronger if a user repeatedly violates a rule.

6. Conflict Resolution Mechanisms: Rapid, low cost, local arenas exist for resolving conflicts among users or with officials.

7. Minimal Recognition of Rights: The rights of local users to make their own rules are recognized by the government.

8. Nested Enterprises: When a common-pool resource is closely connected to a larger social-ecological system, governance activities are organized in multiple nested layers.

[1]: http://web.pdx.edu/~nwallace/EHP/OstromPolyGov.pdf

(anyhow, hopefully this seems interesting, but pls disregard if not :) )

> 2A. Congruence with Local Conditions: Appropriation and provision rules are congruent with local social and environmental conditions.

There are a couple of prerequisites to add to that:

First, Local social and environmental conditions can be articulated in an internally consistent and coherent manner.

Local stakeholders largely agree on the captured articulaton as correct.

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