MildlySerious

Do you believe this is more likely than corporations trying to restrict the supply for their corporate competitors? My thinking would be that we're just caught in the crossfire. The percentage of people seriously running their own models locally would hardly be any less diminishing if hardware prices were at their previous levels.

I'm not saying that, nor did I allude to it in any way. I made no assertions as to what the solution should be.

The ideal scenario would be everyone choosing not to engage with these predatory platforms. Going from there, the right question to me is what steps we have to take as a society for that to become even remotely realistic and, subsequently, what role governments can or should have in that.

For starters, I would be in favor of fines that actually hurt the bottom line instead of this "cost of business" bullshit. We have handed these corporations unprecedented access to and control over our lives, to the point that they erode democracy and the social fabric itself. The inevitable abuse of that power when it comes with barely any strings attached needs to be punished in a way that makes it unattractive as a business model at the very least.

Instead of lowering the attack surface by locking out kids, and in turn introducing mass surveillance which at best also lends itself to abuse, the root issues of ruinous greed and lack of accountability need to be addressed. The whole concept that there is no price too high for profits needs to burn. Social media is just one of the more recent manifestations of it.

Two things can be true, and I am in the same boat. Should the next generation have their brains fried by ad-tech corporations and their algorithms? Absolutely not. Should the overdue off-ramp from this trend be the on-ramp to mass-surveillance and government overreach? Also a firm no.

I do have a lemmy account, but have not really returned to it in a while. Maybe I haven't found the right communities yet, but it had nothing about it that felt engaging. People upvoted, but nobody talked. No interaction. Digg felt more alive from day one. I replied to a post in a niche community with ~100 members and only afterwards realized it was @justin.

Yeah. Sadly the default communities were flooded with blog spam, and that's just the part I noticed. A couple days ago a bunch of smaller communities also got a noticeable bump in members. That didn't change anything in my own community, but others apparently weren't so lucky.

I can see why the team got overwhelmed. I wouldn't want to have to deal with that.

You're right, and that is one of the lessons to be reminded of here.

My main point wasn't that, though. It's simply a bad and low-effort way to handle the situation, and like one of the other replies points out, there are better options. They could have just as well disabled posting and maybe even viewing of submissions and communities for the time being. Just shutting it all down immediately without notice leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I will not be among the people returning for their next relaunch. I am sure others feel the same way, and I don't think it is a wise decision to needlessly put off your early adopters if you're hoping for them to come back "next time".

I am kind of peeved. I started a community there and diligently posted links to topical news, and it kind of became a reference to me. Like many others, I've put in some amount of effort.

Now it's gone, again. Without a head's up or a way to get a backup out of it, it seems like. Can't say I am a fan of that.

That felt a little like watching a modern version of Primitive Technology. Cool project, very nice mode of presentation.

I would love to just mount a directory via SFTP, so I can use my IDE alongside the far-away Claude. That would put this in the realm of daily use for development.

That is just delightful.

Reference[1] for anyone wondering.

[1] https://xkcd.com/936/

There really is no prize for being technically correct on this one.

Someone built this and is letting you have it. For free. There is no legal obligation or law of the universe here, sure, but if you're in the top 1% of benefactors of this pro bono work, you have the opportunity to do some good and make sure that others, like you, get the chance to benefit from this free work in the future.

There is a pretty straightforward argument to be made that this falls under the "with great power comes great opportunity" umbrella of moral reasoning, since this work empowered CA to create the game that earned him a lot of money.

I can't update DNS entries for my domains with Porkbun, because it's "Powered by Cloudflare".

Their entire business model is effectively centralizing the web. The downtime over the last two weeks shows some of the problem with that.

I have used their products and have more favor toward them than I do for the corporations you're referring to, but ultimately my question is the same.

People protesting ICE do not do so out of political concern, but humanitarian concern.

This seems like a minor nitpick as those two are intimately tangled up, but it matters to make the distinction. Standing up for others is not petty or self-serving and that's exactly what this sort of conflation can falsely imply.

Even if they are off by a factor of 100 it's a huge win and the point stands.

It's fair to point this out and worth the mention. Still, I'd like to think that the engineers behind this can at least gauge the benefit of this endeavor with some accuracy despite the discrepancy in available data, and stating the data that is available only makes sense.

I have always found the summary of Foundations of Geopolitics[1] to be an interesting re-read whenever some larger event involving Russia happened. It feels like the puzzle pieces have been coming together at least since Brexit, if not much longer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics#Con...

You could cut the emissions of the top 1% in half, or reduce the emissions of the bottom 4 billion to 0. Same result.

Which do you believe is likely the lower hanging fruit, has a higher return per dollar spent and is likely to be more ethical and less invasive?

So yeah. I care about per capita emissions on the grounds that things need to change fast, and adjusting the lifestyle of a few million is radically easier than wiping half the planet off the emissions map.

That's exactly what rich assholes have to do with it. Why do you believe all the consequence falls onto the working class and the poorest, when the richest have per capita the largest emissions, by whole orders of magnitude?

Yeah, the changes required are systemic and go from the top all the way to the bottom, and the things you mention are part of that process, but pricing people out of everything without offering an off-ramp is sadistic bullshit, and the only reason it's a thing is because rich people and stock prices have more representation in politics than the poor and the environment.

Quad9 and dns0 are the current "go to" EU options I believe. I would wager that most users of those services would be more wary of an option directly provided by the EU instead of a third party, not less.

They refuse to disclose the authors. [1]

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1kvmguc/eu_is_plann...

HN Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44168134

For free, too, expecting absolutely nothing in return. No accountability. No responsibility. There is simply no exchange happening. They take, and that's it. Somehow.

This is, for all I care, on par with sites that mess with scrolling.

I sort of understand this being used on artistic or playful sites, or ones to show off tech, sure. On a document that talks about usability? Feels like satire.

They are not expelling extremists based on extremism. They are expelling extremists based on public fallout. The remaining ones are effectively their spokespeople.

Germany has a wide range of political parties that cover the entire political spectrum. A party of extremists is not needed for a strong opposition. What German politics needs is momentum, and the will to actually get stuff done, even if it'll be unpopular. The fact that the AfD managed to use and abuse that mindset to gain popularity does not make them the right ones to make a positive impact. In fact, even putting their extremism aside, their contrarian and anti-progressive "everything new is woke" mentality is the exact opposite of what the country needs, for all I care.

I've answered your last question in a sibling comment to yours.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43869432

In simple terms, Trump's current administration is the AfD's wet dream. Talk big about free speech and free market, state's rights, cracking down on immigration, all the populist talking points. Then play the victim whenever things don't work out, dismantle regulatory bodies and oversight committees, and selectively apply the law depending on loyalty and conformity.

> Such hyperbole is dangerous at best when people take it seriously.

The same is true about the sitting president and some of his staunch supporters repeatedly "joking" about, and alluding to a third term[1][2][3][4] - including merch[5].

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-third-te...

[2] https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5104133-rep-andy-ogles-pr...

[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-jokes-ru...

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9-ft4BvHTE

[5] https://citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2025/04/29/trump-...

What? Roping someone into a conversation they didn't intend to have? You don't say.

For one of us rubbing people the wrong way in nested threads is not a recurring theme. I'm elated to be receiving advice from a pro. Thanks.

> you have been in bad faith for this entire conversation repeatedly failing to grasp this point

No. I am repeatedly failing to understand why you're trying so hard to make this point. To me. I simply stated my thoughts. I didn't try to prove anything, or ask to be converted or proven wrong on something that I thought was obviously enough subjective.

> this is clearly malicious

Yes, I maliciously tried explaining why I think the way I do after being needlessly challenged in it. I wasn't trying to convince anyone or win some intellectual debate. I still don't understand where the problem is. This comment thread is everything I wish HN wasn't like.

It doesn't seem like you care to communicate anything, really. You've pivoted and conflicted your own words multiple times now, and you were markedly annoyed before I asked questions, which is what prompted them in the first place.

"Books are about information primarily. Then they are about stimulation, of which there is only one type. But not that kind of stimulation." You seem most interested in figuratively listening to yourself talk, because I refuse to believe that your goal is to convince a stranger on the internet that instead of picking up a book they might as well binge whatever is hot on Netflix, which is all I've gathered from your words.

Your comment history seems similarly pessimistic and snarky, and other commenters in sibling threads seem to be getting a similar impression.

I wish you the best. Truly.

Is that really a topic to be this snarky and standoffish about? What's the point?