The problem isn't the web, the problem is greed is becoming more and more acceptable with every passing year. It's consuming everything.
But really who can blame them? Housing, health, cars, everything is unaffordable. Who can afford to be not greedy? People who would have otherwise lived quiet, content lives are now clamoring to get to the top of the hill just to survive before it all topples over.
Unfortunately, the worst of the greed is being driven by people who can afford anything and only need more money because it's their measurement of their self worth.
It's always amusing to me when I see people who only interact with a tiny percentage of the web saying that it's time to burn everything down and start again. Do these people know other websites exist? I would hope a tech journalist would.
Its the other way around; you might be the one seeing a tiny portion (curated blogs, specialty forums like HN etc). The majority of the internet is SEO garbage, LLM garbage and walled gardens
It's always been up to the individual to curate what they interact with.
If someone is willingly engaging with the latter things in your post, that's not an argument to burn down the entire thing along with the good things.
I'd wager a hefty sum that most newspapers in say 1890 were also absolute garbage filled with drivel and advertisements, but that doesn't mean they weren't useful or that the average person had to read them page to page.
Dana White is the president of the ufc and he was complaining about some MMA forum one time and said he doesn't listen to the internet - he has twitter on his phone.
The sad thing about his misguided statement is that I think society nurtured an entire generation of twitter journalists.
Revolutions without a concrete plan to replace whatever they are burning down are doomed to failure, doomed to replace the status quo with something worse. Heck, most revolutions with a concrete plan are also doomed to failure, but the exceptions show that they're sometimes worth it.
And once we have a concrete plan to replace the internet, what's preventing it from incubating parallel to the existing internet?
I thought Reddit could have been the next generation of the web (not the internet which is just a bunch of tubes). A human moderated forum and community segregated by interests. Unfortunately humans aren't perfect and moderation is imperfect. And then there's the bot problem.
Perhaps what we need is a new community, tied to an actual human being from birth or you could become naturalized into it. But no more randomness at the core-level which weeds out the bots. And moderation is for CSAM or other illegal things at the government level. But the community moderates its own, either through voting on posts, or perhaps the community elects its own moderators to serve a term. A constitutional republic if you will...
I think that's fair. I have a project to rebuild the "web" and have to catch when I get it wrong. We already have multiple webs and I don't believe a better one is that hard to get to.
Users have grown acustom to certain modern features and functionality but every vision for a new web throws those out the window and and tries to recreate the most simplest form of the web.
The web today sucks but i'd rather have it than only static sites.
I'm having trouble envisioning a positive future, maybe the web will rot but if we don't make something better of that corpse someone with bad intentions will.
An we aren't making much to better the web either. We really need new ideas before it's too late and the web just surrenders to be net negative for the people or just boring.
The web was a moment in time. We are far beyond that moment. Apps, walled gardens, LLM generated content, and ads eroded it away. Unless the youth take to, promote and use, the web I don’t see the situation improving.
The web is essentially already dead to me. HN and perhaps 3 or 4 other sites are the only place I spend any time any longer. I seem to lean instead on LLMs more and more. And so far, not disappointed.
(Which may say more about how low the bar is these days with our enshittified Web.)
yeah, unfortunately the people writing the articles are not exactly the same people responsible for monetizing the website and probably they are at odds :/
This has very little to do with technology. Like a lot of these articles lately, it doesn't belong on HN. Every legacy tabloid like Wired has been pumping out stories that are 90% social and 10% technology. Simply involving computers is not enough to keep it on HN anymore.
There's nothing to discuss here, but I'll try anyway...
I don't think we've ever burned down a city and "started over" just because of obnoxious salespeople harassing and soliciting, antisocial loitering, open air drug problems, homelessness, or even the unregulated food carts making people sick. It's extremely easy to see that these problems are as old as civilization and the parallels with social media, ecommerce, advertising, etc.
We solve them by ousting the old and bringing regulation. Tough shit if you don't like it. It's not a question of "if", but "when". It happens when people get fed up enough. We're not quite there since it's still mostly unproductive whining.
something like a government. It is (exactly) the same problem as the one which leads to physical states forming: a state of nature with simple rules becomes gradually optimized for deception and violence (or whatever the internet equivalents of those are---manipulation, impersonation, hacking, extortion?---and then when it gets bad enough a 'state' is formed to do something about it.
The social and technological infrastructure for a digital 'state' doesn't exist at the moment but there's no reason it couldn't.
Well, one could argue there is a state at present, just, that it is not a very good one. In which case the necessity is the digital equivalent of a 'revolution' against it.
For some specific examples, it is not hard to imagine a parallel-universe internet which punishes fraudulent behavior by banning actors from all of its territory. Or which imposes transaction costs on things that are presently free (email, etc) to prevent spam. Or which coordinates micropayments in lieu of advertising/manipulation funding. Or which guarantees that the equivalent of domains never change hands, to prevent the problem of domains being taken after they expire and used for nefarious purposes..
Of course this raises all sorts of other concerns (cf how incensed people become by the idea of using real identities, age verification, or any other threats of censorship). But that is the same problem as the question of what makes physical states 'legitimate': how do you build an institution which has enough legitimacy that people buy into it instead of rejecting it? By guaranteeing rights, having good leadership, having good constitutional processes, whatever else... it is 'the' hard problem of civilization, and probably there is no perfect solution, but that doesn't mean you get to get away with not solving it by ignoring it; refusing to face it directly means just defaulting to a particular outcome without getting to even debate the tradeoffs of the choice you have made.
https://archive.is/sNbrl
https://unwall.app/www.wired.com/story/let-the-internet-die/
The problem isn't the web, the problem is greed is becoming more and more acceptable with every passing year. It's consuming everything.
But really who can blame them? Housing, health, cars, everything is unaffordable. Who can afford to be not greedy? People who would have otherwise lived quiet, content lives are now clamoring to get to the top of the hill just to survive before it all topples over.
Unfortunately, the worst of the greed is being driven by people who can afford anything and only need more money because it's their measurement of their self worth.
I think people arent more greedy. the problem is more that people can now do harmful things to a lot of other people who arent their direct peers.
It's always amusing to me when I see people who only interact with a tiny percentage of the web saying that it's time to burn everything down and start again. Do these people know other websites exist? I would hope a tech journalist would.
Its the other way around; you might be the one seeing a tiny portion (curated blogs, specialty forums like HN etc). The majority of the internet is SEO garbage, LLM garbage and walled gardens
It's always been up to the individual to curate what they interact with.
If someone is willingly engaging with the latter things in your post, that's not an argument to burn down the entire thing along with the good things.
I'd wager a hefty sum that most newspapers in say 1890 were also absolute garbage filled with drivel and advertisements, but that doesn't mean they weren't useful or that the average person had to read them page to page.
Dana White is the president of the ufc and he was complaining about some MMA forum one time and said he doesn't listen to the internet - he has twitter on his phone.
The sad thing about his misguided statement is that I think society nurtured an entire generation of twitter journalists.
Revolutions without a concrete plan to replace whatever they are burning down are doomed to failure, doomed to replace the status quo with something worse. Heck, most revolutions with a concrete plan are also doomed to failure, but the exceptions show that they're sometimes worth it.
And once we have a concrete plan to replace the internet, what's preventing it from incubating parallel to the existing internet?
I thought Reddit could have been the next generation of the web (not the internet which is just a bunch of tubes). A human moderated forum and community segregated by interests. Unfortunately humans aren't perfect and moderation is imperfect. And then there's the bot problem.
Perhaps what we need is a new community, tied to an actual human being from birth or you could become naturalized into it. But no more randomness at the core-level which weeds out the bots. And moderation is for CSAM or other illegal things at the government level. But the community moderates its own, either through voting on posts, or perhaps the community elects its own moderators to serve a term. A constitutional republic if you will...
Any piece that starts off by conflating the internet and the web isn’t worth reading.
The ability to adapt vernacular to different sociolects is important for mass communicators.
Not just that, it seems to conflate "the internet" and "social media apps"
I think that's fair. I have a project to rebuild the "web" and have to catch when I get it wrong. We already have multiple webs and I don't believe a better one is that hard to get to.
Users have grown acustom to certain modern features and functionality but every vision for a new web throws those out the window and and tries to recreate the most simplest form of the web.
The web today sucks but i'd rather have it than only static sites.
I do miss the old internet; back before the AD-men got rich, took it over, and claimed everything as their own.
I miss the niche little websites, the ones built by people just trying to share something creative without trying to sell you something.
I'm having trouble envisioning a positive future, maybe the web will rot but if we don't make something better of that corpse someone with bad intentions will.
An we aren't making much to better the web either. We really need new ideas before it's too late and the web just surrenders to be net negative for the people or just boring.
The internet has been a shambling zombie since Eternal September started.
The web was a moment in time. We are far beyond that moment. Apps, walled gardens, LLM generated content, and ads eroded it away. Unless the youth take to, promote and use, the web I don’t see the situation improving.
Never give up. Adapt, overcome.
The internet or the web?
The web is essentially already dead to me. HN and perhaps 3 or 4 other sites are the only place I spend any time any longer. I seem to lean instead on LLMs more and more. And so far, not disappointed.
(Which may say more about how low the bar is these days with our enshittified Web.)
Do you just comment without reading the articles or what? Because if you click the links then you’re obviously reading things from other sites.
Paywalled and ad-ridden article telling me what is wrong with the internet.
This reminds me of "Don't complain about the traffic: YOU are the traffic".
yeah, unfortunately the people writing the articles are not exactly the same people responsible for monetizing the website and probably they are at odds :/
Was just about to post the same thing!
This has very little to do with technology. Like a lot of these articles lately, it doesn't belong on HN. Every legacy tabloid like Wired has been pumping out stories that are 90% social and 10% technology. Simply involving computers is not enough to keep it on HN anymore.
There's nothing to discuss here, but I'll try anyway...
I don't think we've ever burned down a city and "started over" just because of obnoxious salespeople harassing and soliciting, antisocial loitering, open air drug problems, homelessness, or even the unregulated food carts making people sick. It's extremely easy to see that these problems are as old as civilization and the parallels with social media, ecommerce, advertising, etc.
We solve them by ousting the old and bringing regulation. Tough shit if you don't like it. It's not a question of "if", but "when". It happens when people get fed up enough. We're not quite there since it's still mostly unproductive whining.
We already have Internet2, do we need Internet3?
We need internetminusads.
Don’t let the door hit ya where god split ya!
The stuff this article is talking about is not the Internet. It's more like a good chunk of the web ("web 2.0"), social media, and forums.
I don't entirely disagree. While we're at it lets let played-out Internet culture (memes, etc.) die and lets do something new.
The Internet is wires, routers, switches, and IP.
reminds me of the faux "new internet" pitch from silicon valley. in tone at least.
Remember Web3?
"We're going to start over, and this time we won't make the same mistakes!"
Lol.
Paywalled article.
Also, how do you plan to start over without inviting all the same people problems that existed before?
With Blackjack and Hookers.
Ah, never mind, forget the whole thing.
something like a government. It is (exactly) the same problem as the one which leads to physical states forming: a state of nature with simple rules becomes gradually optimized for deception and violence (or whatever the internet equivalents of those are---manipulation, impersonation, hacking, extortion?---and then when it gets bad enough a 'state' is formed to do something about it.
The social and technological infrastructure for a digital 'state' doesn't exist at the moment but there's no reason it couldn't.
Well, one could argue there is a state at present, just, that it is not a very good one. In which case the necessity is the digital equivalent of a 'revolution' against it.
For some specific examples, it is not hard to imagine a parallel-universe internet which punishes fraudulent behavior by banning actors from all of its territory. Or which imposes transaction costs on things that are presently free (email, etc) to prevent spam. Or which coordinates micropayments in lieu of advertising/manipulation funding. Or which guarantees that the equivalent of domains never change hands, to prevent the problem of domains being taken after they expire and used for nefarious purposes..
Of course this raises all sorts of other concerns (cf how incensed people become by the idea of using real identities, age verification, or any other threats of censorship). But that is the same problem as the question of what makes physical states 'legitimate': how do you build an institution which has enough legitimacy that people buy into it instead of rejecting it? By guaranteeing rights, having good leadership, having good constitutional processes, whatever else... it is 'the' hard problem of civilization, and probably there is no perfect solution, but that doesn't mean you get to get away with not solving it by ignoring it; refusing to face it directly means just defaulting to a particular outcome without getting to even debate the tradeoffs of the choice you have made.
it's very funny that this is paywalled