That was a long article, but definitely worth the read. After reading the detail of the systematic destruction of favorite meeting places on the internet, I couldn't help but be reminded of the...
Exemplary
That was a long article, but definitely worth the read. After reading the detail of the systematic destruction of favorite meeting places on the internet, I couldn't help but be reminded of the systematic buyouts of the print media in the late 80s and 90s when news went from detailed articles that discussed pros and cons, that is, both sides of an issue, far more than they do now and became media with the photo of the sexy lady on every page six. I remember the huge headlines in the remaining print media of the latest buyouts trying to act as alarms warning of the end of real information.
Then I watched as broadcast news went from a learning experience where panels often were assembeled with people on different sides of an issue, to lack of information, to misinformation. In those earlier days of news, those panels would discuss their very different views of a topic, argued with one another mostly in a civil manner, and we learned. In these current days of news, we get information devoid of detail and are encouraged to become entrenched.
Information is power. The ability to get information, accurate, detailed information, to a large number of people quickly, is vital to a nation's health. Think about that.
That turned into a complete different direction than I was expecting. This person really has some great analyst skills and pins down the stuff that is happening on the Internet very well.
That turned into a complete different direction than I was expecting. This person really has some great analyst skills and pins down the stuff that is happening on the Internet very well.
Great line right there. And that's the issue in a nutshell. Humans can be taught to behave in specific ways, sometime unnatural and harmful even, but in the end, humans can never stop going off...
Stop being human. A mindless bot who makes regular purchases is all that’s really needed.
Great line right there. And that's the issue in a nutshell. Humans can be taught to behave in specific ways, sometime unnatural and harmful even, but in the end, humans can never stop going off the script and well, being human. And that explains the frustrations of CEOs and Board of Directors and engineers as well as common users and consumers and content providers. Humans are not going to always stay in their lane and continue to fit the same services in the same way forever. In simplistic terms, humans cannot be trained to be bots simce they're going to want for changing things, sometimes passionately, and sometimes those things aren't going to work out because of... other humans. Whether its politics, the internet, or your kid's school. And we'll also probably never get over thinking that this time will be different. We see a shiny new promise like Prodigy or Reddit, and still we get shocked and frustrated when it fails to continue in the easy ways we think it should
Yeah. They're spot on. I've been screaming into the void for a decade or so about this very topic. Centralisation and Commiditisation of online communities has absolutely sucked the fun out of the...
Yeah. They're spot on.
I've been screaming into the void for a decade or so about this very topic. Centralisation and Commiditisation of online communities has absolutely sucked the fun out of the Internet.
I always thought the PHPbb forums were just the height of Internet. You got trolls and provokoters, windups and crack pots... But you then got the 99% who wanted to talk about their topic and stuff surrounding it. Moderation and Admin was held by a select group who had a laugh here, there and everywhere.
Then it moved to Facebook, then Discord... And the other sites imposed centralisation type features that kept folks going to them time and time again. They developed the endless stream of tat and psychological conditioning that made the Internet profoundly hostile and boring to be on.
I think there's a generation now who know nothing else. They never experienced BBs or Forums. Just Tiktok, Facebook and other hostile players who want to consume and for you to do the same... And for nothing else to exist but profit.
I hate that so many communities I was part of moved from forums to Facebook. For me it was mostly niche sports communities and local clubs, but the phpbb forums were 10x better at the sort of...
I hate that so many communities I was part of moved from forums to Facebook. For me it was mostly niche sports communities and local clubs, but the phpbb forums were 10x better at the sort of discussions and event planning we used to do than facebook.
Who? The author of the article? That's Catherynne M. Valente, acclaimed author of Fantasy and Science fiction novels. Look her up, she's really got a way with words. Edit: a letter.
Yeah. He's spot on.
Who? The author of the article? That's Catherynne M. Valente, acclaimed author of Fantasy and Science fiction novels. Look her up, she's really got a way with words.
No need to apologize, we can't always check the author of every article we read, and mistakes happen. Which is one of the places gender neutral terms come in handy. I Mostly noticed because I've...
Apologies
No need to apologize, we can't always check the author of every article we read, and mistakes happen. Which is one of the places gender neutral terms come in handy. I Mostly noticed because I've read some of Valente's fiction before so the name looked familiar.
I usually throw down a comfortable "they / them" as it's just my default. Somedays I think I just post pre-coffee and my brain gets it all a little wrong. Non-dudes already get a hard time online,...
I usually throw down a comfortable "they / them" as it's just my default. Somedays I think I just post pre-coffee and my brain gets it all a little wrong.
Non-dudes already get a hard time online, last thing they need are slip ups! At least it's easily corrected.
I'm 35 and in a position at work that makes me think about this stuff fairly often. Recently started reading Invisible Women by Caroline Perez and it makes for stark reading when you realise many...
I'm 35 and in a position at work that makes me think about this stuff fairly often. Recently started reading Invisible Women by Caroline Perez and it makes for stark reading when you realise many of our systems shaft an entire gender!
This is probably my favourite quote from this piece. Excellent read, thank you for sharing.
To lay out a reliable pathway to commit harm and lie about it for so long and in so many ways that by the time the truth is available, it doesn’t matter, because the harm is a foundational part of the system we’re living in.
This is probably my favourite quote from this piece.
I think that almost all post/articles like this miss one massive factor in the equation: costs. It costs money to host any webservice, no matter how open source and community driven it is. You...
I think that almost all post/articles like this miss one massive factor in the equation: costs. It costs money to host any webservice, no matter how open source and community driven it is. You need hardware that the service runs on, electricity to power that hardware, an ISP to connect to the internet, etc. etc....
And even if you manage to reduce all those costs to the minimum, it takes time to run a service. Time to troubleshoot, to develop, to run everything. And there is only so much time in a day. And you need to eat. And food costs money.
No matter how you look at it, making a service available on the internet costs money. And if you don't make more money from a service than what it costs to run (doesn't matter if donations, subscriptions or whatever else), you are severely limited as to how large it can get.
Trying to make money from websites isn't malice or greed. It's a necessity.
Hm, I disagree to some extent. Yes, it takes money to run servers and to keep services up, but you can do that without it becoming predatory. If there was a subscription for Tildes that covered...
Hm, I disagree to some extent. Yes, it takes money to run servers and to keep services up, but you can do that without it becoming predatory. If there was a subscription for Tildes that covered the cost of doing business, with a promise that the site would stay exactly the same and wouldn't be sold off or anything, I think many people would welcome that. And, let's face it, a lot of it just is greed - it's not about the service being free as in beer, it's about the service being free as in freedom. And to that end, I think the author raises an interesting point: without the users, or if you wanna go that far, the workers, all of these sites would be nothing. Turning the website from somewhere where people want to gather into a digital storefront is a kick in the teeth for those long time users, and I totally understand the anger.
It's not about "website operators make money is bad", it's about website operators destroying what they build for no reason other than money, and destroying real connections between real people in the process.
Sorry if this comment is an incoherent mess, still very tired - But nobody is faulting people for wanting to make money. That's not the issue. The issue is wanting to make so much money it destroys a good thing in the process.
I totally agree with you that you can run something without it being predatory. And that a lot of business decisions are made out of greed. And maybe even about a tildes subscription. But I do...
I totally agree with you that you can run something without it being predatory. And that a lot of business decisions are made out of greed. And maybe even about a tildes subscription.
But I do think that a lot of people forget that you need a surprisingly large amount of money to keep a website up. I honestly think a lot of people are spoiled in regards of the internet. We are too much used to a whole lot of stuff being essentially free for the end-user, to being able to do whatever we want.
And now, a lot of services simply can't afford to keep running as they always have. If the not-greedy large ones are not moving forward, they'll get pushed aside by the greedy large ones that do, since those can afford to lure in more users, or simply get swallowed up.
It's far from what I would like the internet to be, but it is the unfortunate reality we live in. Freedom, as nice as it is, doesn't pay the bills.
In regards to your last point: I think the issue at its core is that a whole lot of large websites (especially social media) are/were simply not sustainable the way they are/were run. And after 10-15 years of almost careless existence, we now come to the point where they either have to cover their costs or cease to exist the way they did.
So yeah, I think you are completely right when saying they want to make so much money that they destroy what they have created. I just think that is because what they have created can't sustain itself economically. And if it can't, who's going to pay for the operating costs?
That's totally fair, I see where you're coming from. I'm a web designer myself, and I know how quickly server costs can scale - but a public platform where people can exchange freely is, frankly...
That's totally fair, I see where you're coming from. I'm a web designer myself, and I know how quickly server costs can scale - but a public platform where people can exchange freely is, frankly speaking, just as much of a utility as water and energy these days. A preposterous thesis to some, I'm sure, but let's face it - without people all over the world being able to come together to communicate, our modern world falls apart. Disregarding the whole host of partisan issues that will no doubt arise, I think it's at least worth considering nationalising or publicising a platform that allows this. Think a library, a place that's not making money (nor should it), but we all benefit from it, and therefore we pay taxes to keep it open. Sure, this proposal may be a bit myopic, but it could be at least a partial answer to the problem. If you don't like direct state funding, maybe through something like the Canada Media Fund, with a non-profit in charge. I dunno, just spitballing - but it is something we ought to consider, methinks.
I totally agree with your point about the necessity today. And my home country of Germany actually also agrees: since 2021, a fast and affordable internet and telephone connection is considered as...
I totally agree with your point about the necessity today. And my home country of Germany actually also agrees: since 2021, a fast and affordable internet and telephone connection is considered as just as essential as water and electricity. Meaning ISPs are thus required to expand their networks to cover everyone. Doesn't mean it happens overnight, or that internet access is free, but neither is true for water and electricity. We still have to pay for all that (there is actually a big discussion going on here in regards to power and heating costs, but that's a different story...).
Your point about a public platform for discussion being a base utility on the other hand I don't quite agree with 100%. I have no doubt that "free" (as in unhindered) communication and information exchange is one of the best things that happened to humanity. I just think that the ability to do so will naturally arise by people creating platforms to do so as long as the government ensures the public infrastructure exists. In that regard a think the market economy model of supply being created by demand will come true. Kinda how Wikipedia emerged. Or YouTube.
And I also have no issue about a tax-funded or -supported online network, at least in principle.
My doubts come from this: I don't think a place of unlimited freedom/free speech online is possible. The same way it is not possible IRL.
I hope we all agree that there are things that you are not allowed to say or disclose (yelling "Fire!" in a full theatre or bank account access details being my favourite examples). And hell, we in Germany have much stricter rules on that the US.
That all means that there is always going to be the need to moderate and administer a social platform. And the effort to do so goes up exponentially the larger your platform is. And I would never expect any government to look at that equation and say "yeah, that's a great way to spend our tax money!"
All that to say: services like the publicly funded DW website and YouTube channel? Sure, 100% for it. Publicly funded social media site? Don't see how that would work... (not to mention that our local data protection organisations would probably riot if the government were to announce something like that).
Great article. Reminds me of the olden days of AOL when I’d spend hours hanging out in the Red Dragon Inn chatrooms and making up RP scenarios with friends I made there. Resident Evil, Sailor...
Great article. Reminds me of the olden days of AOL when I’d spend hours hanging out in the Red Dragon Inn chatrooms and making up RP scenarios with friends I made there. Resident Evil, Sailor Moon, all kinds of silly stuff kids were into. It was such a great time.
One of my favorite things was downloading little used created sound files. Weird mashups of Cartman saying “Look out for Charlie up in the trees” over the beat to Kick the P.A. from the Spawn soundtrack. The internet was just different back then. I really miss the simplicity.
I think duplicate posts like this should be removed. Or maybe show the OP same link has been posted before and if they still want to share the link, they add why in Post body. Maybe original post...
I think duplicate posts like this should be removed. Or maybe show the OP same link has been posted before and if they still want to share the link, they add why in Post body. Maybe original post didn't get much interaction or they didn't like the course of discussion in previous post. Also Tildes doesn't archive old posts and encourages to add your opinion to them if you like to. If you see the duplicate post tag, this is second post with that in last 2 days.
Sorry if this sounded harsh and heartless. I feel like complaining a lot these days, maybe I need some rest too.
No, it did show me on the posting page that it's a duplicate, last posted in January 23. It even asked me to confirm that I do want to post it. I think this is a great piece and deserves to be...
No, it did show me on the posting page that it's a duplicate, last posted in January 23. It even asked me to confirm that I do want to post it. I think this is a great piece and deserves to be read and discussed again; especially now that with the reddit exodus, it's more relevant than ever.
This is a great feature! But I think your reasoning for posting it again makes sense - it would be cool if Tildes asked reposters to write a short reason for reposting (maybe require 15-20 words,...
No, it did show me on the posting page that it's a duplicate, last posted in January 23. It even asked me to confirm that I do want to post it.
This is a great feature! But I think your reasoning for posting it again makes sense - it would be cool if Tildes asked reposters to write a short reason for reposting (maybe require 15-20 words, or more, to make people show some effort?)
It would be neat if there was an automagic link back to the previous post(s) for context, but for whatever it's worth I'm glad this got reposted because I got to be part of today's lucky 10,000.
It would be neat if there was an automagic link back to the previous post(s) for context, but for whatever it's worth I'm glad this got reposted because I got to be part of today's lucky 10,000.
That was a long article, but definitely worth the read. After reading the detail of the systematic destruction of favorite meeting places on the internet, I couldn't help but be reminded of the systematic buyouts of the print media in the late 80s and 90s when news went from detailed articles that discussed pros and cons, that is, both sides of an issue, far more than they do now and became media with the photo of the sexy lady on every page six. I remember the huge headlines in the remaining print media of the latest buyouts trying to act as alarms warning of the end of real information.
Then I watched as broadcast news went from a learning experience where panels often were assembeled with people on different sides of an issue, to lack of information, to misinformation. In those earlier days of news, those panels would discuss their very different views of a topic, argued with one another mostly in a civil manner, and we learned. In these current days of news, we get information devoid of detail and are encouraged to become entrenched.
Information is power. The ability to get information, accurate, detailed information, to a large number of people quickly, is vital to a nation's health. Think about that.
That turned into a complete different direction than I was expecting. This person really has some great analyst skills and pins down the stuff that is happening on the Internet very well.
She's also a great author. I highly recommend her fiction.
Great line right there. And that's the issue in a nutshell. Humans can be taught to behave in specific ways, sometime unnatural and harmful even, but in the end, humans can never stop going off the script and well, being human. And that explains the frustrations of CEOs and Board of Directors and engineers as well as common users and consumers and content providers. Humans are not going to always stay in their lane and continue to fit the same services in the same way forever. In simplistic terms, humans cannot be trained to be bots simce they're going to want for changing things, sometimes passionately, and sometimes those things aren't going to work out because of... other humans. Whether its politics, the internet, or your kid's school. And we'll also probably never get over thinking that this time will be different. We see a shiny new promise like Prodigy or Reddit, and still we get shocked and frustrated when it fails to continue in the easy ways we think it should
Yeah. They're spot on.
I've been screaming into the void for a decade or so about this very topic. Centralisation and Commiditisation of online communities has absolutely sucked the fun out of the Internet.
I always thought the PHPbb forums were just the height of Internet. You got trolls and provokoters, windups and crack pots... But you then got the 99% who wanted to talk about their topic and stuff surrounding it. Moderation and Admin was held by a select group who had a laugh here, there and everywhere.
Then it moved to Facebook, then Discord... And the other sites imposed centralisation type features that kept folks going to them time and time again. They developed the endless stream of tat and psychological conditioning that made the Internet profoundly hostile and boring to be on.
I think there's a generation now who know nothing else. They never experienced BBs or Forums. Just Tiktok, Facebook and other hostile players who want to consume and for you to do the same... And for nothing else to exist but profit.
I hate it. I love this site
I hate that so many communities I was part of moved from forums to Facebook. For me it was mostly niche sports communities and local clubs, but the phpbb forums were 10x better at the sort of discussions and event planning we used to do than facebook.
Who? The author of the article? That's Catherynne M. Valente, acclaimed author of Fantasy and Science fiction novels. Look her up, she's really got a way with words.
Edit: a letter.
Yeah, this got clocked on another message and I thought I'd corrected that... Apparently it didn't save?
Apologies.
No need to apologize, we can't always check the author of every article we read, and mistakes happen. Which is one of the places gender neutral terms come in handy. I Mostly noticed because I've read some of Valente's fiction before so the name looked familiar.
I usually throw down a comfortable "they / them" as it's just my default. Somedays I think I just post pre-coffee and my brain gets it all a little wrong.
Non-dudes already get a hard time online, last thing they need are slip ups! At least it's easily corrected.
You're right. You sound like good person. Being an old (42y) dude myself, I just try to do better every day.
I'm 35 and in a position at work that makes me think about this stuff fairly often. Recently started reading Invisible Women by Caroline Perez and it makes for stark reading when you realise many of our systems shaft an entire gender!
Previous discussion from January here
Will edit with own comment after reading the article.
This is probably my favourite quote from this piece.
Excellent read, thank you for sharing.
I think that almost all post/articles like this miss one massive factor in the equation: costs. It costs money to host any webservice, no matter how open source and community driven it is. You need hardware that the service runs on, electricity to power that hardware, an ISP to connect to the internet, etc. etc....
And even if you manage to reduce all those costs to the minimum, it takes time to run a service. Time to troubleshoot, to develop, to run everything. And there is only so much time in a day. And you need to eat. And food costs money.
No matter how you look at it, making a service available on the internet costs money. And if you don't make more money from a service than what it costs to run (doesn't matter if donations, subscriptions or whatever else), you are severely limited as to how large it can get.
Trying to make money from websites isn't malice or greed. It's a necessity.
Hm, I disagree to some extent. Yes, it takes money to run servers and to keep services up, but you can do that without it becoming predatory. If there was a subscription for Tildes that covered the cost of doing business, with a promise that the site would stay exactly the same and wouldn't be sold off or anything, I think many people would welcome that. And, let's face it, a lot of it just is greed - it's not about the service being free as in beer, it's about the service being free as in freedom. And to that end, I think the author raises an interesting point: without the users, or if you wanna go that far, the workers, all of these sites would be nothing. Turning the website from somewhere where people want to gather into a digital storefront is a kick in the teeth for those long time users, and I totally understand the anger.
It's not about "website operators make money is bad", it's about website operators destroying what they build for no reason other than money, and destroying real connections between real people in the process.
Sorry if this comment is an incoherent mess, still very tired - But nobody is faulting people for wanting to make money. That's not the issue. The issue is wanting to make so much money it destroys a good thing in the process.
I totally agree with you that you can run something without it being predatory. And that a lot of business decisions are made out of greed. And maybe even about a tildes subscription.
But I do think that a lot of people forget that you need a surprisingly large amount of money to keep a website up. I honestly think a lot of people are spoiled in regards of the internet. We are too much used to a whole lot of stuff being essentially free for the end-user, to being able to do whatever we want.
And now, a lot of services simply can't afford to keep running as they always have. If the not-greedy large ones are not moving forward, they'll get pushed aside by the greedy large ones that do, since those can afford to lure in more users, or simply get swallowed up.
It's far from what I would like the internet to be, but it is the unfortunate reality we live in. Freedom, as nice as it is, doesn't pay the bills.
In regards to your last point: I think the issue at its core is that a whole lot of large websites (especially social media) are/were simply not sustainable the way they are/were run. And after 10-15 years of almost careless existence, we now come to the point where they either have to cover their costs or cease to exist the way they did.
So yeah, I think you are completely right when saying they want to make so much money that they destroy what they have created. I just think that is because what they have created can't sustain itself economically. And if it can't, who's going to pay for the operating costs?
That's totally fair, I see where you're coming from. I'm a web designer myself, and I know how quickly server costs can scale - but a public platform where people can exchange freely is, frankly speaking, just as much of a utility as water and energy these days. A preposterous thesis to some, I'm sure, but let's face it - without people all over the world being able to come together to communicate, our modern world falls apart. Disregarding the whole host of partisan issues that will no doubt arise, I think it's at least worth considering nationalising or publicising a platform that allows this. Think a library, a place that's not making money (nor should it), but we all benefit from it, and therefore we pay taxes to keep it open. Sure, this proposal may be a bit myopic, but it could be at least a partial answer to the problem. If you don't like direct state funding, maybe through something like the Canada Media Fund, with a non-profit in charge. I dunno, just spitballing - but it is something we ought to consider, methinks.
I totally agree with your point about the necessity today. And my home country of Germany actually also agrees: since 2021, a fast and affordable internet and telephone connection is considered as just as essential as water and electricity. Meaning ISPs are thus required to expand their networks to cover everyone. Doesn't mean it happens overnight, or that internet access is free, but neither is true for water and electricity. We still have to pay for all that (there is actually a big discussion going on here in regards to power and heating costs, but that's a different story...).
Your point about a public platform for discussion being a base utility on the other hand I don't quite agree with 100%. I have no doubt that "free" (as in unhindered) communication and information exchange is one of the best things that happened to humanity. I just think that the ability to do so will naturally arise by people creating platforms to do so as long as the government ensures the public infrastructure exists. In that regard a think the market economy model of supply being created by demand will come true. Kinda how Wikipedia emerged. Or YouTube.
And I also have no issue about a tax-funded or -supported online network, at least in principle.
My doubts come from this: I don't think a place of unlimited freedom/free speech online is possible. The same way it is not possible IRL.
I hope we all agree that there are things that you are not allowed to say or disclose (yelling "Fire!" in a full theatre or bank account access details being my favourite examples). And hell, we in Germany have much stricter rules on that the US.
That all means that there is always going to be the need to moderate and administer a social platform. And the effort to do so goes up exponentially the larger your platform is. And I would never expect any government to look at that equation and say "yeah, that's a great way to spend our tax money!"
All that to say: services like the publicly funded DW website and YouTube channel? Sure, 100% for it. Publicly funded social media site? Don't see how that would work... (not to mention that our local data protection organisations would probably riot if the government were to announce something like that).
Great article. Reminds me of the olden days of AOL when I’d spend hours hanging out in the Red Dragon Inn chatrooms and making up RP scenarios with friends I made there. Resident Evil, Sailor Moon, all kinds of silly stuff kids were into. It was such a great time.
One of my favorite things was downloading little used created sound files. Weird mashups of Cartman saying “Look out for Charlie up in the trees” over the beat to Kick the P.A. from the Spawn soundtrack. The internet was just different back then. I really miss the simplicity.
I think duplicate posts like this should be removed. Or maybe show the OP same link has been posted before and if they still want to share the link, they add why in Post body. Maybe original post didn't get much interaction or they didn't like the course of discussion in previous post. Also Tildes doesn't archive old posts and encourages to add your opinion to them if you like to. If you see the duplicate post tag, this is second post with that in last 2 days.
Sorry if this sounded harsh and heartless. I feel like complaining a lot these days, maybe I need some rest too.
No, it did show me on the posting page that it's a duplicate, last posted in January 23. It even asked me to confirm that I do want to post it. I think this is a great piece and deserves to be read and discussed again; especially now that with the reddit exodus, it's more relevant than ever.
Fair enough.
This is a great feature! But I think your reasoning for posting it again makes sense - it would be cool if Tildes asked reposters to write a short reason for reposting (maybe require 15-20 words, or more, to make people show some effort?)
Edit: spelling.
It would be neat if there was an automagic link back to the previous post(s) for context, but for whatever it's worth I'm glad this got reposted because I got to be part of today's lucky 10,000.