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Comment by xg15 | Hacker News Reader

Ironically, this feels exactly like the various "semantic web" initiatives, only this time coming directly from the tech megacorps and not the starry-eyed "free web"/"open data" idealists.

It will hit exactly the same walls too, namely that the technical details are completely irrelevant - if adopting a standard is actually a negative for websites, because it will separate the site from its users, sites will obviously not do it.

You can lead the horse to water but you cannot make it drink, especially if the water is obvious poison.

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> if adopting a standard is actually a negative for websites, because it will separate the site from its users, sites will obviously not do it.

Not that I believe this will be how the future turns out, but what if the main users of websites end up being agents? Then adopting the standard ends up being a requirement for survival instead of something negative.

Hopefully and ideally we don't end up there, because then the internet will surely suck for us humans, but I'm not so sure the whole "make platforms/websites open up for the machines" will necessarily fail yet again because of the same issues, can very well be different this time.

Curious, in this world, what are the people doing? Is it like that WallE floating bed thing? I just find it fascinating people could survive by dissassociating real effort for...

Imagine going back 50 years, and without your knowledge of computers, offices and more. Being exposed to the world today with the knowledge and experience from 50 years ago, surely just a typical corporate office would look weird, inefficient and strange. "What do you mean you just write electronic letters all day, how is that work?" someone might ask.

Now imagine doing that but instead jumping 50 years into the future. Surely most of the "highly valuable knowledge work" at that point will look just as alien to us today as today would look to someone from 50 years ago.

Also, imagine waking up from the matrix.

The dissassociation is the same confusing/confounding thing.

> the starry-eyed "free web"/"open data" idealists.

I love it when the people who just want to use technology to benefit humanity as a whole are dimly regarded as "starry-eyed idealists."

> because it will separate the site from its users, sites will obviously not do it.

Sites don't generate their own users. Users must discover sites. This allows a third party to dictate terms to them. Which we already know happens.

> especially if the water is obvious poison.

Alcohol exists. I think you might want to put away the "perfectly rational" assumptions about humanity.

Is an agent-ready website so obvious poison? If I'm running a plumber shop in East London, then I'd want agents to know that just as much as I want Google (Search) to know that. The same will be true for most real-world businesses. Only sites that make money by selling their users' data and eyeballs obviously stand to suffer.

Or the website of someone who makes things for people to see, or art for people to consume, and would prefer to avoid being automatically plagiarized as much as possible. It's not always about business.

Ok, forgive my snark. But I think the point stands that for a lot of sites being found by agents is just another form of SEO.

Semantic web all over again. The incentive problem is the same one that killed RDFa and microformats. Nobody maintains structured markup for someone else's benefit unless there's traffic or money at the end of it.

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