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Comment by Aurornis | Hacker News Reader

> and I only want people in the US to be able to access it. That simple task is literally impossible with what we have allowed the internet to become.

Is anyone else as confused as I am about how common anti-openness and anti-freedom comments are becoming on HN? I don’t even understand what this comment wants: Banning VPNs? Walling off the rest of the world from US internet? Strict government identity and citizenship verification of people allowed to use the internet?

It’s weird to see these comments get traction after growing up in an internet where tech comments were relentlessly pro freedom and openness on the web. Now it seems like every day I open HN and there are calls to lock things down, shut down websites, institute age (and therefore identify) verification requirements. It’s all so foreign and it feels like the vibe shift happened overnight.

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> Is anyone else as confused as I am about how common anti-openness and anti-freedom comments are becoming on HN?

In this specific case I don't think it's about being anti-open? It's that a business with only physical presence in one country selling a service that is only accessible physically inside the country.... doesn't.... have any need for selling compressed air to someone who isn't like 15 minutes away from one of their gas stations?

If we're being charitable to GP, that's my read at least.

If it was a digital services company, sure. Meatspace in only one region though, is a different thing?

you're being obtuse, GP clearly wants a locked down internet

> In this specific case I don't think it's about being anti-open? It's that a business with only physical presence in one country selling a service that is only accessible physically inside the country.... doesn't.... have any need for selling compressed air to someone who isn't like 15 minutes away from one of their gas stations?

But that person might be physically further away at the time they want to order something or gather information etc. Maybe they are on holidays in Spain and want to access their account to pay a bill. Maybe they are in Mexico on a work trip and want to help their aunt back home to use some service for which they need to log in from abroad.

The other day I helped a neighbor (over here in Europe) prepare for a trip to Canada where he wanted to make adjustments to a car sharing account. The website always timed out. It was geofenced. I helped him set up a VPN. That illustrated how locked in this all has become, geofencing without thinking twice.

I guess GP didn't provide enough info, but to me it looked like it was the underlying infra that is networked

That is I'm assuming:

1. Customers are meatspace only, never use any computer interface 2. The network access is for administration only 3. That administration is exclusively in the US

That's the most obvious answer but if that's the case then restricting to "US" is way too wide in the general case and also too narrow if an employee takes a trip to another country and tries to check in. That simple task is fundamentally flawed to the point it's not worth worrying about.

"only need US customers to be able to" vs "want non-US customers to be unable to"

> In this specific case I don't think it's about being anti-open?

The anti-open part was the mention of “allowed to become”, as if we needed to disallow something to achieve this unstated goal.

> It’s all so foreign and it feels like the vibe shift happened overnight.

The cultural zeitgeist around the internet and technology has changed, unfortunately. But it definitely didn't happen overnight. I've been witnessing it happen slowly over the past 8-10 years, with it accelerating rapidly only in the last 5.

I think it's a combination of special interest groups & nation states running propaganda campaigns, both with bots and real people, and a result of the internet "growing up." Once it became a global, high-stakes platform for finance and commerce, businesses took over, and businesses are historically risk averse. Freedom and openness is no longer a virtue but a liability (for them).

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