Big Tech's Takeover and Destruction of Open Protocols and Networks | Hacker News Reader

Big Tech's Takeover and Destruction of Open Protocols and Networks

cheapskatesguide.org

50 pointslistenfaster13 comments

Don't forget the biggest corporate takeover of them all: HTML, which is now effectively owned by Apple, Google, and Microsoft via WHATWG and their web browser dominance.

Google didn't kill RSS. If RSS was so great, there were plenty of readers available that people could have jumped to. RSS died because it became yet another channel for ad delivery and shitty content.

XMPP wasn't killed by Facebook either. XMPP never really caught on in the first place. Not in the way RSS did. IIRC, XMPP started because people were using 20 different chatting apps which were basically the same app under a different banner (icq, msn, yahoo, etc.). And it was a pain. People used aggregators to connect to all these different networks at once. And so, the Jabber guy thought it could be good to have a protocol so that people can use the app they wanted to connect to a single network. But that never happened in practice. Facebook may have built a bridge to implement XMPP, just in case it lifted off. But once it was clear that XMPP wasn't going anywhere, it made sense to dump it. And then whatsapp came along, and it was a vastly superior chat app, and people used that and that was it.

Meta's Thread may be different. Because this time, they probably know a little better. Thread connecting to Mastodon is a clear way for them to fill their feeds with desillusioned ex-Twitter users' content. So I am all for the blocking of Thread.

I use RSS constantly for my work and don't have any complaints other than some news sites not bothering to support it because their user base is technologically illiterate enough to be willing to pay a subscription fee for substandard, ad-ridden service.

XMPP was never embraced by Facebook, not sure where that myth comes from (they only had a bridge to connect XMPP clients to), but it did catch on in form of Google Talk up until it was turned into defederated Hangouts.

Is more likely that XMPP was killed by Google instead, and Meta is trying to do the same over ActivityPub https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-netwo...

A federated protocol on its own is not stable. As a matter of hardening these protocols against EEE attacks, federated protocol designs probably need to bake in a mechanism which provides incentives for people to run their own servers. I'm not sure exactly how you'd do this in a way which avoids Sybil attacks and doesn't require cooking the planet. Ideally you'd want something like granting network privileges to a server proportional to the log of its user base?

what sort of solutions cook the planet?

Proof of work crypto?

https://endthefud.org/energy

The second link on that page says bitcoin uses a half a percent of global energy use which is a BONKERS amount of electricity. The fact the author tries to justify the use of that much energy is an astounding stance.

Bitcoin solves the Byzantine fault problem, among other technical feats and for some reason computer scientists are focused on the networks energy usage (which is less than xmas lights in the US or your laundry dryer). how much energy does the internet use?

energy is energy. using it is not bad, it’s how society progresses.

It’s not even worth trying with these climate people. They are a cult who can’t see facts that don’t support their arguments.

Bitcoin uses electricity, yes. But it is far more efficient than the global banking system. People forget that buildings cost, infrastructure to those building cost, the people needed to run banks cost, and yes the masses amount of computing the banking industry cost. The energy used just by the cars on the employees to the banking system probably dwarfs the total energy use of Bitcoin. (Car production plus electricity or gas)

The issue with Bitcoin is it is easy to reason about its energy usage, while the “banking systems” is so nebulous it’s hard to think about the total resources it needs to exist and run. Ans the climate folks have hyper focus or perhaps tiny brains that can’t handle much more than a child’s approach to reasoning.

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