The Internet is not broken | Hacker News Reader

The Internet is not broken

blog.webb.page

20 pointsNetOpWibby18 comments

I can't disagree when I read those posts about the internet being broken, but I can't agree with the feeling of helplessness. Especially if you are posting about it on HN or in your own hosted website. You clearly are the person who can do something about it.

I loved the look and feel of this website btw, it surprised me how readable it is.

Thank you, glad you like it!

Not readable on my phone. The font is far too small.

The article includes the strongest argument to the contrary in itself:

> "YOU CANNOT PUT THE GENIE BACK IN THE BOTTLE"

The dominance of US-based FAANG companies is not a natural state, but the result of a decades-long process of centralization. The only viable contenders are services in isolated markets, like Russia or China, and they are a result of and at the same time subject to a separation rooted in politics. It's not just a matter of getting in your boots and working hard. (Which is the "it's broken" aspect, especially from a capitalist perspective.)

> The only viable contenders

You gotta explore the Internet more.

“Viable” is quite subjective. I, an American, do not perceive services from oppressive regimes as such. Features and UX aren’t enough.

Regarding the dominance of FAANG, that’s temporary. Xerox Parc, HP, Oracle, &c were behemoths in their time. What happened? Better products and companies supplanted the old guards.

I refuse to believe the dominance of a handful of companies cannot be overcome.

> What happened?

The introduction of entirely new architectural platforms and related distribution channels provided a unique opportunity. I doubt that it would have been possible without this. (Xerox PARC, BTW, was never a market factor, but only a research facility.) In a few cases, the breaking of the dot-com bubble provided an opportunity for a major reset (compare the demise of SUN, this probably relates to Oracle, as well.) *

Regarding "viable contenders": I'm not intending any valuation. It's rather a factual statement about if and where there are services of a similar capability. (Turns out, there is some kind of systemic aspect to this.)

*) You may say, those who relate to the internet as "broken" are yearning for a similar hiatus or paradigm shift.

Internet isn't broken. It's just that stupid people like to depend on big corporations.

They are not stupid. They don't want to mess with computers. Like they don't want to mess with their cars or appliances. There is too much things to mess with and not everyone is good at messing with things and this detracts them from things they want to do in their life. So they pay a little more money and can in exchange spend more time on what they are doing better. That's called specialisation. I agree that too much specialisation is not optimal, but neither is doing many different things badly.

Great point. Bill Gates is unquestionably very intelligent but I doubt he works on his car when it is broken. Just because he doesn't work on it does not mean he doesn't know or couldn't figure out how to fix it. He has the means to have someone else do it.

There's one argument I don't understand when people complain about the current state of affairs:

Most of the (popular) internet depends on FAANG corporations today, sure, but it's not like in the 90s people were hosting their own html. We were depending on Geocities, for example. What's the difference?

Also, today is easier than ever to connect to the internet and host your own website, why doesn't more people go down this route? Security? Bandwidth? Maintenance? (If so, then there's clearly a lot of value in the services that FAANGs provide)

> We were depending on Geocities, for example. What's the difference?

Here's one: Geocities wasn't buying every Internet-related startup that looked like it had half a chance of becoming a contender.

Back then that was not the business model. Were they one of the top tech companies today, don't you think that they would be doing the same?

I'm not saying they were less evil, I'm saying they were less dangerous.

>Also, today is easier than ever to connect to the internet and host your own website, why doesn't more people go down this route? Security? Bandwidth? Maintenance?

For the same reason most people don't want to construct a kit-car to be able to drive to the store, or print and bind every book they want to read - people want to use the web to consume media and publish content without first building the infrastructure of a website by hand.

Also because social media has a powerful network effect. Sure, you could publish a Wordpress blog on your own server, but no one is going to read it unless that blog is linked somewhere, and as easy as Wordpress is, it still needs administration. It's easier to find and curate an audience on social media because that's what those platforms are designed to do, and easier still to just publish from social media or a hosted service like Medium.

> As for me? Well, I am just one guy on the Internet with a voice and a plan for every item on this list. I am also not afraid of not knowing what I do not know so 2021 should be an informative year for me (us, if you want to follow along). Watch this space.

Bravo, nice job working through things in the article and pushing yourself. I will watch the space, which feels curiously like watching a text file :-)

Now if I could duplicate myself I could get through that list a lot faster.

> - Too much of today's Internet is dependent upon a handful of tech companies.

> - Most of "FAANG": Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google

"Most of" - not sure what Facebook/Apple/Netflix are doing in that list here. Even Microsoft has a bigger role there.

Good point about Microsoft, too bad they aren't in the acronym. I think Facebook still fits though, if not for political reasons.

EDIT: Maybe "trillies" would have been a better word. https://interconnected.org/home/2021/06/28/trillies

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