In this day and age of censorship, I feel the same about web hosting. The American government should provide their citizens with a small space of hosting to share their thoughts.
I imagine getting your representatives to author and pass legislation for this (which will include raising money to pay for it) will be met with more opposition than you think. I think this because I don't think it serves the public interest :)
I do hope that web 3 brings a DNS service that can be bought once and owned forever that nobody can tear even from your cold dead hands. I'm not holding my breath though.
It had all sorts of nice properties, including some resilience against Sybil attacks.
The problem was that, even with the ability to "forget" unneeded blocks, the storage requirement was simply out of reach for the regular person. [2]
And because it's out of reach of the regular person, it will inevitably centralize around companies that do it for people. And we're back to where we started.
On the contrary, I'd say I haven't yet heard of a problem that web3 and blockchain can solve better than other technologies.
There are a lot of problems for which you can create solutions that involve web3 and blockchain but that doesn't mean that technology is necessary nor sufficient to solve those problems, nor that it is the best solution (or a good solution, at least).
Web3 and blockchain do solve a number of problems in the specific scenario that you want to collaborate within domains controlled by the blockchain with individuals you actively distrust, though. With the obvious caveats that you have to trust the blockchain itself (which both in PoS and PoW means trusting people with sufficient wealth to control large portions of the infrastructure) and that everything you want to do has to be within domains controlled by the blockchain (whether the actual problems within that domain benefit from this or not).
So in a sense the question becomes how much you are willing to sacrifice to be able to solve that class of problems instead of redefining the problem so it doesn't require a blockchain.
You should learn that this is what would have happened to you if you had not worked hard during your education years. Now you can pass that lesson on to your children. :P
I don't understand the hate toward cookie banners. It's like if the citizens of a surveillance state complained if civilian-dressed informants had to carry a big ugly sign. Sure, the sign is ugly and everywhere; but maybe the actual problem is that there are so many informants that you have to see so many signs, rather than their signs being ugly.
Shoot the actual problem (i.e. the dark patterns and malicious compliance of the concerned websites), not the messenger.
Both are a problem in their own right. Tracking visitors to make up for your lackluster business model is abusive, but cookie banners as usually implemented are but one way to comply with regulations aimed at curtailing this. And in my book, it's a form of malicious compliance, making it equally part of the problem.
Annoying consent flows aren't compliant, at least not with the GDPR. A compliant consent flow should make it as easy to accept as it is to decline, so pre-ticked checkboxes or hiding/burying the decline option doesn't comply.
Incompetent regulators that are asleep at the wheel and still haven't done anything to punish this (GDPR went into effect in 2018) are definitely a problem though.
Even if the regulators attacked more websites it wouldn't matter. You'd just have more and more websites that block European users.
You can't expect websites to give you a pop up that asks whether they can monetize your visit or not. Everyone's going to click "refuse" because ads are annoying. As a consequence your website makes no money. At that point why run the website at all?
Regulators don't want to regulate too hard, because it would ruin all the freely available websites.
> As a consequence your website makes no money. At that point why run the website at all?
Many European websites are now proposing users to either accept cookies or buy a subscription to the website. This looks like a very sane way to address the problem to me.
> You'd just have more and more websites that block European users.
Why should I care? Market changes, adapt or disappear.
> This is not the market changing, it's a law crushing a free market that already existed.
In that case, what’s the difference between a free market and a compulsory market?
If market participants must only participate by choosing to spend or to not spend, they are beholden to the economic system, and are unfree actors in the status quo “free market” economic situation.
And yet by exercising political freedom to make themselves (more) free, these unfree participants in the “free market” somehow make the market unfree, and instead of viewing that as a benefit to market participants, you view it as a loss of freedom in the status quo “free market” to the detriment of the unfree participants.
I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to understand where you’re coming from.
And those same “unfree” participants are free to legislate what websites may or may not do with information that websites collect. The websites are similarly free to not do things that are prohibited by law in a given jurisdiction, or else not offer services to users subject to that legal jurisdiction.
There was never any “free market” status quo in the absence of regulation to begin with, either in statute or in practice. There always are forces external to the market which act upon it, and some of those forces are individuals and groups of people.
To say the free market exists, did previously exist, or could one day exist, is a truth claim I don’t see the evidence to support. Advocating for a “free market” as opposed to the status quo is both an economic and a political position, and thus should address both economic and political aspects of the issue you present.
What about this would you rather be different, and how so? Or what about this would you characterize differently?
> This is not the market changing, it's a law crushing a free market that already existed.
The same could be said about outlawing slavery. Before you scream at me, let me take a step back: of course ad-tech is by far not as horribly bad as slavery. Still the practices they established in the last decades are a violation of human rights, in the european interpretation. They track and profile humans online to a level no private investigator could do offline. And we are at the beginning of what is possible: people place network active microphones and cameras in their homes or carry them around all day. Devices they no longer control, since "no root for consumers" became a security feature. Public spaces are increasingly surveilled by networked cameras, physical advertisements in public spaces and private businesses track wireless signals of nearby phones. Privatized mass surveillance became the norm in cyberspace and the same is happening in meatspace as well. And at the same time the algorithms that guess which content best manipulates individual people into buying, voting or believing something are getting better fast and are deployed at scale.
We are at a crossroads of how society will develop, and this mentality that corporations can collect and use personal data however they like (and they like to manipulate people) is no longer acceptable. And if these corporations weren't creepy enough with their systematic stalking, governments lean more and more towards also using that data. As long as the government promises it is "just for fighting crime" people are somewhat consenting, but on the territory of my country we had two totalitarian regimes in the last century that abused data gathering at scale to identify and oppress their political opposition, to terrorize and murder them. Horrors like the STASI must never happen again. Say no to surveillance capitalism while you still can, demand a constitutional right to the protection of personal data now! Because the freedom of governments and corporations must be limited, so the freedom of the people is preserved.
The market must change, it is necessary. What we want is that you can take your smartphone and tell it that it is ok if it connects to the supermarkets augmented reality and every ad-space you walk by becomes a personalized experience, if that is your choice. That is your freedom. Don't let the ad-provider of the supermarket make that choice for you. Don't let someone tell you that freedom means you could choose to not go to the supermarket and instead grow potatos in your one room flat. That is bullshit. Fuck that free market, give us free people.
> You'd just have more and more websites that block European users.
Great! It frees up space for more respectful alternatives.
However ads are universally disliked and the problems the current ad model brings (privacy, spam/scams/malware, inappropriate/illegal content, etc) are generally universal too, so it's just a matter of time before similar regulation is enacted outside of Europe too.
> because it would ruin all the freely available websites.
Laws against theft/robbery/carjacking ruin free/below-market-rate car rental websites too, yet nobody is complaining about those because society has decided that theft is bad even if it would technically open up new business opportunities that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Why should this be any different?
> I don't understand the hate toward cookie banners.
My main issue with it is that if I disable cookies, then every single time I need to accept it. If I enable cookies then I only need to accept it one time. I think this annoying thing actually reduces security, because people are more likely to just not delete the cookies at the end of the session to avoid this annoying popup. Makes the web totally unusable if you delete the cookies regularly without a plugin to hide the cookie banner.
We already knew cookies were being used everywhere. I dont need to be told the same thing 100000 times because it makes some people feel better and altruistic.
It didn't bring any benefits and has wasted excessive amounts of my time.
First-party, non-tracking cookies do not require a cookie banner.
I'm always flabbergaste how good the propaganda machines of ads agencies is that people are actively fighting protective measure on their behalf. Nihil novi sub sole I guess, but it's fascinating to see this process happen first hand.
That's just plain false. I know many people, especially in the older, less technically literate people, who now systematically disable such analytics thanks to these banners – people who had never realised the real dimension of users tracking before this law.
It's not propaganda by ad agencies. Why make it into a conspiracy? There are pretty great tools out there that you can use for websites, such as Google analytics, but the moment you use that you're implementing a cookie banner.
Want to have ads? Cookie banner. Want to have YouTube/Twitter/whatever integration? Cookie banner.
europa.eu has a cookie banner. A website that doesn't even need to pay its own bills!
>I don't understand the hate toward cookie banners.
Because they fundamentally don't work. The EU politicians had to have known that they didn't work from previous experience, but decided to inflict us with these pop ups anyway. Their own damn website has this pop up.[0]
Reasons why cookie banners don't work:
1. They need to be implemented by the website. This means that if a website decides to ignore the cookie law they can set all the cookies they want and you won't be notified. If they are outside of the EU's jurisdiction they won't even care.
2. Targeted advertising is how a lot of websites pay the bills. This means that websites will use every trick in the book to get you to not click on the "refuse" button. Why wouldn't they? You're using their server time, but generating no revenue if you refuse. Websites will fight this process. They'll eventually lose, but the internet will either turn into a splinternet or cable TV. Ads are what make free websites work and cookies is how it happens right now.
3. Websites are made by people who aren't always well-versed in legalese and can't just hire a lawyer for everything. They don't always know whether they need a pop up or not. The safer option is to put it up there. If the EU's own website has one then probably so does yours.
4. Popups are annoying.
Cookies should be handled by the browser. Not some harebrained JavaScript.
At least twenty years ago the popups had voluptuous women for me to look at before before I closed them in annoyance. Now they're still spying on me same as before but they're irritating me while they do it.
I have never given correct information for those. I always sign up with the name of a president and the address of the White House. I’ve been using a phone number from 15 years ago for those.
>I have never given correct information for those. I always sign up with the name of a president and the address of the White House. I’ve been using a phone number from 15 years ago for those.
I believe +1 (202) 456-1414 is the number[0] you want to use.
I don't have a problem with accepting some ToS when I sign up to a service. My problem is this new law where you have to accept the ToS of every single website on the internet before you can use it, then the ad networks, the analytics services, etc. It would be like having to sign a ream of papers every time I enter a store.
The sites wouldn't need to get your consent for justifiable usage only. They actively decide they want more than that, they want to sell your data. So it's on them, the law itself is fine.
I have zero problems with ad-supported shit going out of business and making space for good, paid content. Imagine a world where content has to be so good as to convince people to take out their wallet. No more clickbait, "this video is sponsored by ShitVPN", chumboxes, etc.
Fully with you on that one. The fact of the matter is that most "free" content is fast food style content - you eat it because it's designed to be addictive. Consumers may feel like they want it, but that's just because it's there, prodding you, calling out to you, autoplaying the next video out of "convenience". If it were to disappear tomorrow, I'd likely spend more time reading old books, practicing programming for my entertainment
There was a time when the likes of YouTube and blogging were just a hobby, not a job for pseudo marketers. Replacing paid "influencers" and "content creators" with plain hobbyists again would be a wonderful thing.
I can imagine such a world. It would be cable TV with heavy region locks. The poorer parts of the world wouldn't be on it at all.
Paying for things online is still a terrible experience. You need a credit card, which isn't always easy to get outside of the rich western countries. I would never have used websites like reddit, HN, Twitter, YouTube or Google if I had had to pay for it. As a kid I wouldn't have been able to pay even if I had wanted to.
>No more clickbait, "this video is sponsored by ShitVPN", chumboxes, etc.
No, you would have even more of this, because this type of monetization is not linked to cookies.
Advertisers usually buy ads to encourage the purchase of a product/service. It is not sustainable to spend more on advertising than what the revenue you get back from it in the form of purchases - over the long term, the ROI has to be positive. Ad-supported services still exist in poor parts of the world despite the advertisers only being able to pay very little (as it has to be relative to the local price of the advertised goods/services), so the prices of paid services can similarly be adjusted to compensate.
> heavy region locks
This is already done, I'm pretty sure Netflix in India costs a fraction of what you'd pay in the US for example. While it's not an ideal solution, it's mostly a solved problem.
> Paying for things online is still a terrible experience.
Agreed on this one, but again the reason it isn't is because currently ads are a "good enough" model that there is not enough market pressure to develop something better. If ads become unsustainable, the content industry will have no choice but to either die out or compromise and collaborate to develop a payment model that has better UX.
> you would have even more of this
Only if it's allowed. If ads are nuked out of existence due to enforced regulation (promoting products makes you a reseller from the eyes of the law and you need to assume liability and provide support & warranty) or even just platform rules (posting commercial content on YouTube requires a costly subscription - shilling sponsored products without it will result in a ban) you wouldn't have it.
Outside of email (which I do pay for), I can't think of an online service I'd pay for. HN is about as close as it gets, but I wouldn't pay for what it is today.
You don’t, that’s the point of the law. As in, the old “EU cookie law” focused on you knowing the terms, but that proved ineffectual where every website operator said “accept or GTFO” (you’d think that would end up an unstable equilibrium, but it didn’t).
Thus the “new” GDPR is predicated on the idea that consent given under “... or GTFO” terms is invalid, given the imbalance in negotiating power, and said consent (where required) had to be voluntary by that definition. The result is cigarette-labelling-level malicious compliance on part of website operators (and compliance-in-a-box vendors they use).
Many of the things you see, such as requiring you to turn off every single “purpose” or “partner”, are manifestly illegal (or rather, don’t legally constitute voluntary consent, so showing them is legal but tracking you afterwards isn’t), but enforcement has been lackluster so far. We’ll see where we end up I guess. (I genuinely don’t know how I want this to go.)
>Also, some high end hotels did provide unfettered access to the Internet for some reason, so I guess anyone could go there and browse Facebook for the price of an expensive coffee.
Practically everybody who is knowledgeable with computers uses a VPN - restrictions are only for "the plebs"
Whenever I read about countries banning sites, people post "just use a VPN, lol". But I wonder: If China really wants to, couldn't they just block VPNs? At the worst, just whitelist a bunch of sites and services and literally block everything else?
The GFW is evolving. Many VPN protocols or servers that worked in the past works no longer. It’s definitely not as simple as “just run a VPN”, but more like a cat and mouse game.
They do. They fingerprint for OpenVPN in real time and block it. In 2018 I was cycling through multiple VPNs at a time. The only thing that worked was Shadowsocks.
Can confirm. I setup a Shadowsocks VPN using Streisand on a DO instance at the Singapore data center. That was the only way to get through the firewall.
Words can deceive but behaviors never lie. I am inclined to believe what the West has to say about China, because China behaves in a way that gives veracity to many of the claims made by others about China, and what they are/aren't doing. Once you start making judgements based on behavior rather than "he-said/she-said", you will find that you make far more accurate decisions about things in general.
Because china is the rising power to US dominance, and both sides will discredit each other from time to time. Also western journalist orgs have an incentive to paint an unflavourable picture while getting non of the blowback.
Also, keep in mind yours is but one experience out of many.
China has no free press. Literally none. Hongkong's free press was obliterated shortly after China broke the treaties they had with the UK about keeping Hongkong independent. Try traveling to the areas where Uigurs are being detained to look for yourself if China is lying. You can't and so can't journalists or independent observers. Why is that?
Saying that both are bad and so nobody can be blamed is a bad faith argument.
Not what I'm saying. Blame both sides but this is just tit for tat behaviour that happens especially when one side deems the punishments unfair. You are never going to solve anything in that manner.
Same here. And lately I’m getting the feeling that people systematically “distrusting” western media takes on China, would just take Chinese media at face value.
They would be surprised that they probably actually do.
I would change to directly from the CCP, because there is no independent free press in China at any meaningful scale.
Not only does a lot of their media get big readership online here, People's Daily and others.
Also does anyone know how much SCMP's independence has eroded now? I don't know that much on that one but it still gets placements in news aggregators for example as if it were the NyTimes.
CCP also pays for reach, spending millions to get their content in the large US based media like WaPo. Most people don't realize they are reading an ad, not an actual article by a WaPo reporter.
Though maybe funnily on the opposite end, a CCP persecuted group Falun Gong owns the Epoch Times, which has grown huge too. In the past few years they have been one of the top sources of social media/fb links. A lot of it is just meme & engage bait. but it's still interesting to think about.
