Comment by nonrandomstring | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nonrandomstring | Hacker News Reader

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nonrandomstring

This "hinternet" is a cool concept, but there's something missing from its account.

On one side we have the cultured elites of academia, the military and government - as rightful founders.

On the other, the unwashed masses, immigrants of the Eternal September. Eventually this hoi polloi of hucksters, chancers and grifters became naturalised as the businesses and bankers in the new world.

The dotcom era is a colonisation story and the elites are the aboriginal natives driven off their own land. It sure fits a "woke" narrative.

But what's missing from this fairy-tale is the actual real people.

The truth is, dotcom, Web2.0 and the empire building between 1997 and about 2010 was still a marginal affair, where existing money and power moved into the internet, along with a handful of rugged "entrepreneurs" (as we like to call ourselves around here).

The 99% remained spectators caught between the Scylla and Charibdes, and now they are corralled into ranches, all lovingly watched over...

The potential for a "people's internet" still remains, but we have not solved many (indeed any) of the classical problems of freeloaders, tragedy of the commons.... and at this point I think "Web 3.0 and blockchain web" is dead (?)

A good start to moving things forward to an internet that is once again public, high-quality and large might be looking more closely at the history/narrative of the internet and who the real stakeholders are.

The people have their Internet already. They like Netflix, they like Amazon Prime, they love TikTok, they like Instagram, they like Pinterest, they like their various chat apps, they like their online gaming, and so on.

That is all that they want. Along with some decent ecommerce for shopping and safe, easy to use mobile banking.

There's nothing magical about it, and there never will be. They don't want fluffy magical bullshit. They already have most of what they want and there's nothing grandiose about it, it's overwhelmingly just quasi-boring pedestrian entertainment and amusement to pass the time. That's what they wanted before the Internet, and it's what they naturally want with the Internet. It's because they're tired from their days, their 307 serious life problems (health, mortgage, bills, stress, job), and their exhausting children (that they love dearly of course).

No no no, the peoples Internet must be a vision of splendor! The masses want to spend all day creating extraordinary art, and thinking deeply about complex subjects they just educated themselves on! That's not reality, and it's not what the masses want at all. Not even remotely close.

They want a garbage pile of chaos like Reddit. Where they can insult people without getting punched in the face, and they can learn some tips about wood working other there, and they can look at photos of modded cars over in another sub, and they can go back to insulting someone over in another sub, and then they can watch a stream of rockets being fired at/from Gaza in another thread.

The peoples Internet is already here.

There's a huge amount of truth in what you say. Hence I used the pejorative "Hoi Polloi".

But you can probably tell I once worked for the BBC. And what might look like elitism (of the kind I wouldn't apologise for) is really hope for wider humanity in spite of the Rupert Murdock effect, in spite of a concerted 50 year assault on education, and in spite of the misappropriation of the internet as a giant firehose for diarrhoea. The West's self-devouring and terminal-stage enshitification is quite the spectacle.

So when we look at "the people" and say this or that is "what they want", something recoils inside me. Do we know that? A perpetual cycle where people know what they like and they like what they know is not a stasis or fact of the world but a precarious place of comfortable mediocrity we've come to be. A local minima. There are other places. Cultures have flourished. And sometimes they wane.

The Internet (big I) was more than just a lot of wires, it was an idea. Maybe some fragments of that idea are still alive, I don't know.

> So when we look at "the people" and say this or that is "what they want", something recoils inside me. Do we know that?

The famous (controversial) Indian teacher Osho had a saying on this: "Democracy. Government of the people, by the people, for the people...but the people are retarded."

We often look down on "the people", but the masses have more wisdom than the elites, even if societal consensus can sometimes lead to terrible solutions to problems.

Democracy is nuanced, much like reality, and this bothers people.

> the masses have more wisdom than the elites

I used to think this way also but in recent times I have become less sure. Maybe the easiest way to explain my thinking is to recall that line from the movie Men in Black: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals, and you know it."

Obviously the truth is way more complex than that but I really do doubt the wisdom of the crowds.

A different example might the guys who wrote up the Constitution of the United States. More people were illiterate than literate back in those days. The founders were a small elite, but they created a framework that has served millions of people for a few hundred years.

In any case, yes, democracy is nuanced. It is the best system despite its flaws. And to be frank, the real issue with democracy is that it's run by people...and hardly any of us walk on water. :)

Yeah, it's about how in a monarchy not only can things get way more rotten, but also transitions of power tend to be very bloody (and wasteful) affairs.

I agree, and my take is that the mass of people has, between them, much more "domain wisdom". Different groups have deep understanding of different things. Villagers understand small settlement dynamics; urban dwellers understand towns. People near the sea understand all things related to it; people in grasslands understand nuances of farming better than those in the mountains, etc.

The problem is, you have to reach relevant subgroups to access that wisdom - otherwise, when you're just polling the entire population on a specific topic, well... few subgroups are experts, but everyone has an opinion, so it averages down to "dumb, panicky animals".

It’s not that the masses are so smart, it’s that the “elites” are so mind bogglingly stupid.

I'd rather not be mistaken for a populist. Certainly elites have been pushing society forward.

Democracy is about accepting the fact that people know their own needs better than everyone else does, and that they should be free to express those needs, and to elect representatives that will fight for those needs. Even when we are talking about an illiterate population.

Personally, given recent times, I think the political axis is bullshit, because the real divide, that's driving polarisation, is between liberalism and autocracy. The allure of autocracy is getting stronger, many feel the need for someone wise to force the plebs into doing things "for their own good". Just one example — vaccination certificates, which in my country did not work, and effectively discriminated against the poor.

I don't know much about the history of US's founding, but until a document becomes culture, it's just a piece of paper to wipe your ass with ;-)

> [...] terminal-stage enshitification is quite the spectacle.

I see you're an optimist. I believe things can - and will - get worse for a looong time.

Yeah, I expect a whole next level of enshittification to be enabled by mandatory device attestation.

> The Internet (big I) was more than just a lot of wires...

Yup, it was a series of tubes :)

why is it so important that internet is capital? in english it would all be lower case to be gramatically correct, in german all nouns are capital

> The Internet standards community historically differentiated between an internet, as a short-form of an internetwork, and the Internet: treating the latter as a proper noun with a capital letter, and the former as a common noun with a lower-case first letter. An internet is any set of interconnected Internet Protocol (IP) networks.

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization_of_Internet

The Internet is the biggest internet, the biggest connected component in the graph of computer nodes.

There's two types of wants. The low want of a heroin addict who wants his next fix, and the higher want of the same heroin addict who wants to get clean and a better life. These "wants" can both coexist. If you only use their actions to infer their wants you completely ignore the existence of their higher order wants. It's dehumanizing.

The people want the internet in the "next fix" sense. But I'd argue that the increase in mental illness globally the last ~15 years (starting a couple of years after the introduction of the iPhone) or even just the recent popularity of "digital detoxes" implies that there is a collective higher order want for a better internet.

Both you and GP are assuming people to be perfectly spherical rational actors in a philosophical vacuum. Under this assumption, people are indeed responsible for what they get, as the market only serves the demand. But that's not the world we live in - in our world, "revealed preferences" are bunk, because the suppliers have a lot of tools to control the demand.

The "hoi polloi" aren't born with fully fleshed out idea of "what they really want". Nor do they have much ability to communicate their wants to the market directly. Rather, their wants are in large part created by marketers, and the only signal they can send to the market (via "voting with your wallet") is their relative preferences for options available on the market. That is, they only get to choose from what's available. And what's available is under control of the vendors.

The way this relates to your "lower/higher order wants" is that my actions can actually communicate either of them. Where I spend my attention, or my money, can be driven directly by a high-order want - but I'm still limited to expressing that need only by choosing from a very limited set of actions or products that are available, and then my choice is also heavily biased by sales tricks and manipulative advertising strategies.

In short: I claim that the market is currently robbing all consumers of agency - "hoi polloi" and ${whatever the complement to that is called} alike. This is especially pronounced in tech industry, as commercial software resist commoditization - most apps and services are sticky and not interchangeable, so the UX decisions aren't being strongly influenced by competitive pressure. The vendors have an actual choice of how useful or how abusive they want to be. And they should get the blame when they choose the latter.

This is an insightful explanation.

I see a three stage change, from the pre-Bernays world of informational advertising and functional markets, to the post-Bernays world of contrived demand driven by psychological advertising, to what we have now.

Now we have policy driven economics in which technological goods are foisted upon the population and a post-hoc rationale of why they are necessary is relentlessly pushed as an explanatory narrative.

We're approaching the point where the "very limited set of actions or products " is so dominant that the only choice looks like abstinence; the "Luddite's" choice to not be abused.

What about the middle ground want of a heroin addict who loves heroin but wants pure, unadulterated, properly-dosed, controlled, trustworthy heroin from reputable, consistent vendors, accessed sanely and easily, taken quietly and unobtrusively, so they can float around and have a good time when it fits into their life?

Isn't that the dream of good technology and good internet?

People want the "next fix" internet because that's all they know. People would likely prefer a different internet if they ever had the chance to experience it.

You undermine the argument in favor of "better internet" with a terrible analogy from war on drugs.

There are plenty normal, highly functional heroin users whom we don't know about because they hide this (since it's prosecuted). The poster examples of abuse are not them however, which helps justify prosecution. On the other hand there are people with mental issues who will get addicted to anything, if not heroin then weed, if not weed then gambling, if not gambling then social media, etc etc. Maybe "dehumanizing" is trying to ban every potential vice rather than fixing the issues that lead to misuse. The cause vs. the symptom.

I'd highly recommend "The Myth of Normal" by Gabor Mat\'e as the long version of this position.

But beware, once you accept its premise one must concede by the same token, those who prey upon the vulnerable in society, whether they are heroin farmers and dealers, or addictive app developers, are cut from the same moral cloth. The "legality" or "illegality" of the end product is immaterial, only the social effects.

It's also true. But I don't think this is the best analogy to support the idea of "better internet". Also, you can consider that people who prey on vulnerable are maybe also subject to issues. If not then why prey, right?

> The people have their Internet already. They like [...]

Those are the things that have literally no value me. You'd think the internet would be large enough to address pretty much everybody's needs, including mine, but it's getting pretty clear that it's not.

That's the economies of scale at work. It's more profitable to address larger markets with cheaper and worse products, than a smaller market with better but more expensive products.

Now, given the near-zero up-front costs to making software, there should still be enough room for all the niche needs, but the annoying thing is, the computing ecosystem itself - the hardware, the software platforms (OS, browsers) and even the tools used to make them - it's all being optimized for the mass market / lowest common denominator. As silly as it is, professionals can't get good tools, because the tooling is caught in the gravity well of more generic, mass market products.

The part that really gets me is how this starts making effective use of computers ("bicycle for the mind" stuff) impossible. My go-to example: it doesn't matter if you figure out how to make fully open source & open hardware smartphones for nerds. Even if you make them competitive on price and power with mass-market products. It doesn't matter that you somehow hired John Ousterhout and Edward Tufte to make the maximally ergonomic and functional apps for the platform. I'm still going to buy a regular locked down smartphone, because I need one to be able to use my bank account, and my bank - like all other banks - demand you use a locked-down device from a major vendor, with full device attestation ("because security").

The freedom of computing stops at the network.

> As silly as it is, professionals can't get good tools, because the tooling is caught in the gravity well of more generic, mass market products.

This also happened in hardware.

Back in the day we could design wide range devices using quite widely available "mil-spec" semiconductors and components - a common difference was in logic circuits where you had 74-series in consumer and commercial (0 °C to 70 °C and −40 ° to 85 °C temperature ranges) and milspec 54-series that would suffer −55 °C to 125 °C.

Following something in the 90s called the Perry initiative IIRC, the rules changed to test-based performance that enhanced "market supply" rather than prescribed manufacturing methods, so after STD-883 almost all wide range components disappeared.

Sure if you're NASA or the US DoD you can get stuff made, but increasingly everyone has to source from the same few commercial suppliers. The upshot is that if you're organising an Antarctic survey, or going into the desert it's almost impossible to kit our with modern gear that won't fail. You're stuck trawling eBay for some 1980s Soviet stuff.

Kuro5hin, Slashdot, heck- The WELL all still exist. Old-school platforms and communities are on the internet. So do old-fashioned personal websites. They might have a pittance of users, but they're out there. Is that not what you want? But what you can't want, is for a large amount of people to use them, if they have no inclination to.

It'd be great if everyone started making their own Neocities site. Or even just drop contemporary social media and join the new Friendster (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38021802) or Spacehey. But the cultural impetus just isn't there.

> But what you can't want, is for a large amount of people to use them

If I have a bias about audience size, it tends to be toward "smaller is better".

rusty shut k5 down 7.5 years ago after years and years of being a deadbeat dad to the site – wasn't even willing to keep a static archive of the site up

And we are all worse off for it.

Let the "people" have their mobile apps. Keep computing hardcore!

Except "the masses" do create extraordinary art and educate themselves. Really, we're in the midst of an artistic and creative renaissance on all fronts and in all media, specifically because of the capabilities you hate about the modern web. You just aren't aware of it because it thrives on platforms you would never be caught dead on.

And the "elites" are the ones who created the toxicity of web and gaming culture and made bank on all of those pedestrian forms of entertainment... which they themselves also consume.

thanks to the bbc brit, the subthread essentially culminated in your comment. I'd like to clarify that this dichotomy didn't exist in my original. "technology elite" like somebody hinted elsewhere in the thread, could be a dirt poor kid from underprivileged background, whose accidental access to a computer was the only means of escape from the oppressive reality. at a certain level of technological sophistication one could gain capabilities and access that make one belong to a select group, making one part of the elite. from this perspective, "the masses" are literally everyone else who wasn't on the internet in the early 2000s. yes, by weight and numbers there will be an inordinate amount of talented individuals among them. there will also be perhaps an even bigger number of complete and utter mediocrities. since the person you're responding to doesn't use the term "elites", I can only assume it's everyone you don't like, because some of them would've been technological elites, who then became financial ones, but then some of them would've been financial elites, who remained financial elites never becoming technological ones, and yet by the power of their capital they've exploited technology. they are I guess bad. most of the humanity are good, because a lot of talented ones make art. what a pointless subthread, god damn.

>what a pointless subthread, god damn.

Welcome to Hacker News. You're being weirdly hostile and pedantic about a reply that wasn't even to you. Please touch grass or whatever it is the kids say these days..

jeez, krapp, you've been posting on hacker news since like forever, doing drive by hate posts in random threads all the time, and you tell me to "touch grass". I'll change the password on this bad boy, and won't interact with you fucks for at least like another half a year. /but you're here forever/

Bravo. I am reminded of the “noble savage” concept whenever I read that the people will rise up and support the libre Internet, if they would simply be introduced to it, from pseudo-vanguard tech-literati.

Dialectical virtualism?

The market has spoken, and the market prefers locked-down platforms and subscriptions.

No, the merchants have spoken.

I'll say in the same spirit that Margaret Thatcher said "there's no such thing as society" [0] that;

There's no such thing as markets.

[0] Please read the full quote (and for extra fun replace the word society with markets). Thatcher was saying something far more subtle than the sociopathy she is credited for. Markets have just replaced "society" as the ideological symbol of those who need something to get on their knees before, or blame.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/context-for-margaret-thatchers...

I don’t agree. Conceptually “the market” in this context is just individual purchasing decisions in the aggregate.

The people, voting with their dollars, have decided that they simply don’t care about privacy, libre software, etc as much as we wish they would.

Perhaps you might agree if you expand your view to encompass more than money. The words "just" and "aggregate" are where I think something important is missed. Collapsing the whole of human life and its myriad vectors of complexity down to one scalar, one single "dollar value", and then based on that making pronouncements about whether people value "privacy" or "security" or whatever, seems child-like to me (The idea. Not you. If you really hold it I hope you can move beyond it.)

"Markets" are like Father Christmas and "The Tooth Fairy"; a comforting one-dimensional idea that ought to serve us for a while, and then be discarded for a more mature perspective on the world. We must all try harder to find words that puncture the suffocating veil of "economic realism" that seems to hold back so much thinking.

Most problems stem from users conflating for-profit corporations for public commons. Nonprofit co-ops must provide critical infrastructure.

Who exactly is this prerogative "freeloader" you throw around so casually? Is there some service or good denied others involved?

> Who exactly is this prerogative "freeloader" you throw around so casually? Is there some service or good denied others involved?

Spammers would be a good example. They freeload on the mail routing network. Their actions deny service, as bandwidth, storage and wasted time to millions of ordinary users.

For any readers, “Scylla and Charybdis” is the OG “rock and a hard place.”

you mean - for any readers from the unwashed masses surely?!?

you misunderstood the concept, brought in your own windmills, and then successfully attacked them. I guess it generated an interesting subthread, even if it did derail my point into the tired "internet ain't what it used to be!" direction. god, I was hoping what I said was more subtle than that. other people in the thread have done better, even managed to use google to search the original posts on oblomovka so that they can reflect on the point, instead of just typing things.

but to your "people's internet" point, the real communism has clearly never been tried! it's not the people that want TikTok, it's the power structure. left to their own devices they built cathedrals!

Sorry if I stole some of your thunder there old chap. I don't think I "misunderstood the concept" but rather found it wanting and moved the discussion on. The focus was your precis of the term "hinternet" which I found very interesting and so addressed.

Where it landed (perhaps thanks to TeMPOraL) was actually quite exciting in my opinion, that, in the words of The Jam:

   "the public wants what the public gets."

That's something different from the tired old "internet ain't what it used to be!" trope. Isn't it? : That the entire "market theory" of the internet (and maybe technology in general) is mostly myth.

> real communism has clearly never been tried!

Not sure I follow how a vibrant, diverse, bottom-up, self-governed Internet would be akin to "communism", but then you've got your own windmills to tilt at too.

the public's wants are always reduced to trite generalizations, so maybe it's not about thunder, maybe the upset is that one can generate lively conversation easily by exploiting trite dichotomies, and that such a behavior is distasteful. everybody has an opinion on the hoi polloi from the vantage of their phantom high horse. a chat gpt could write the rest of the thread.

"real communism has clearly never been tried" is a set expression, from the internet. it's a variation on doing the same thing, but expecting different results, with a touch of ideological stubbornness, "this time around if we let people choose, they'll choose a very different internet, from the one they chose before, i'm sure of it, because I believe in people". of course the reason I choose this particular set expression, rather than some other one is to play off your comedic choice of terminology "people's internet". they have "people's internet" in "people's republic of china". you know? I'm not saying communism bad, it's a funny phrase. jeez, you brits used to be keen on subtle humor.

I sympathise with you. It's sometimes hard to get the conversations you want on the internet. But then you have to take people as you find them right? And try to learn something, even (especially) where that's uncomfortable?. Sometimes it's bloody awful. But I come here because I _get_ something; Not knowing what certain demographics think about contemporary issues is worse than knowing and being upset/offended, and I genuinely need that intel to get a fix on what I'm doing.

> a chat gpt could write the rest of the thread.

That's a low opinion of our fellows. Be careful what you wish for. In a few years a forum like this might be untenable for that reason. What keeps it going is precisely the "faith in people" you seem at odds with. Let's not assume it's ideological stubbornness to imagine things could have been different or that they could be different in the future.

> subtle humour

Now I really sympathise. I'm frequently at the sharp end of trying that, and you must know it almost never translates in this forum. Mainly because there is so much sarcasm and double-think that nobody (even the authors) are unsure whether they are making one point, or its opposite.

Respects.

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