RFC8890 – The Internet Is for End Users | Hacker News Reader

RFC8890 – The Internet Is for End Users

datatracker.ietf.org

104 pointsthunderbong23 comments

Some people view things like this as lip service but in my experience it definitely helps to have a principle like this down in writing. There were many times during my career at Google (2015 to 2021) where we were at an impasse around an ambiguous situation and I successfully persuaded my co-workers to pursue a painful/unpopular option by arguing that that option most closely followed Google's #1 principle ("focus on the user and everything else will follow"). In DevRel this happens all the time: the thing that creates a better experience for end users often also creates more pain for the developer (e.g. accessibility, i18n, load performance).

...the thing that creates a better experience for end users often also creates more pain for the developer.

You mean I have to write a bunch of code for that! Yes, that's what computers are for, to do the stuff that people don't want to do. And developers exist to program the computers to do those things. Sometimes it sucks, but the product is better for it and life is a little better for some people.

That is very true! But, at the same time (and without intending offense to you in particular) user-centric principles being written down does not prevent user-hostile behavior. I agree with you that this never hurts, and may sometimes help, but I think (and I'm sure you'd agree) having something firmer and more enforceable than a guiding principle in place is also necessary.

No argument from me! In my original comment I was going to add something along the lines of "[I often used Google's principle to justify unpopular/painful options] but it was relatively easy to do so in my role (technical writer). I'm sure there are other roles where the incentives are stacked in such a way where it's much harder for them to follow the principle."

Enforcement necessitates centralization.

In the spirit of rough consensus, it may be possible to have a group tasked with maintaining principles but without any special powers.

I dont read rfcs often, but when I do I'm always impressed by the quality and precision of the writing. Maybe it comes with experience or maybe my education just sucked lol

It just occurred to me that RFC 8890 was written by Mark Nottingham. When you've written nearly thirty published RFCs, you get pretty good at it I suppose:

https://datatracker.ietf.org/person/Mark%20Nottingham

I also appreciate this draft concerning decentralization:

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-nottingham-avoiding-i...

Ah yes, you're looking for RFC7322:

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7322

They're supposed to be authoritative and unambiguous, hence the precision.

The problem they aim to solve is to be used as reference for various protocols implementation, with the idea that as long as nobody deviates from what the RFC says, all implementations will be interoperable.

It's the font they use.

While it may sound trivial it in fact is profound.

Imagine what end users do day in and day out. And now remove the experts and leave only what said users do on their own behalf.

Maybe just as Gandhi demanded that everyone spin their own yarn and weave their own cloth, everyone should (be in fact able to) put their own texts on the web with a text editor. (Likewise holds for services)

What an internet that could be!

I saw this internet, many moons ago. It was so, so beautiful.

Worth fighting for! I do with things like https://demo.mro.name/shaarligo/

also:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/we-fight-users

We Fight For the Users: An Appreciation of IETF's RFC 8890 (Cory Doctorow)

Any automatic removal of common words when slugifying the article title was quite unfortunate here: “We Fight for the Users” vs “we-fight-users”.

The problem is less that IETF decisions would be user-hostile and more that many entities are not beholden to any standards, least of all IETFs. No matter how well-intentioned pro-user RFCs IETF pushes out, they won't have an iota impact if nobody adopts them. And history has shown that entities tend to flagrantly flout any standards that are not convenient to them.

OTOH I don't see people using Enterprise TLS instead of regular TLS. If your adversary is too lazy to fork you can call their bluff and win.

PR figured this stuff out decades ago they just say everything is for end user security (e.g. Manifest v3) or end user convenience (e.g. tracking as much personal data as possible).

Small change recommended by industry:

^ surveillance of and value extraction from

Pop quiz: spammer sending millions of unsolicited bulk e-mails out of his residential DSL. End-user or not?

Sure. Important to follow that "the internet is for end user*s*" though so a single user's experience rarely comes into play, doubly so when it's at the cost of millions of other users experiences.

One principle elucidated here is that in such cases, the public at large can be considered the end user.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/we-fight-users

One way or another, the individual gets thrown under the bus.

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