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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
yeah, unfortunately the people writing the articles are not exactly the same people responsible for monetizing the website and probably they are at odds :/
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.
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.
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.
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...
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?
pixl97 | 4 hours ago
Also, how do you plan to start over without inviting all the same people problems that existed before?
baron3dl | 4 hours ago
Ah, never mind, forget the whole thing.
ajkjk | 3 hours ago
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.
dipierro | 4 hours ago
test1235 | 4 hours ago
api | 4 hours ago
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.
paxy | 4 hours ago
crowdhailer | 4 hours ago
Retr0id | 3 hours ago
zerotolerance | 3 hours ago
pgn | 4 hours ago
neonnoodle | 3 hours ago
bbor | 4 hours ago
the_hoser | 4 hours ago
Lol.
basscomm | 4 hours ago
JKCalhoun | 4 hours ago
GaryBluto | 4 hours ago
lbrito | 4 hours ago
antisthenes | 3 hours ago
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.
mewse-hn | 3 hours ago
The sad thing about his misguided statement is that I think society nurtured an entire generation of twitter journalists.
JKCalhoun | 4 hours ago
(Which may say more about how low the bar is these days with our enshittified Web.)
iamnothere | 3 hours ago
JKCalhoun | an hour ago
iamnothere | an hour ago
enjrolas | 4 hours ago
brink | 4 hours ago
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.
kuboble | 3 hours ago
gdulli | 3 hours ago
bortimus | 4 hours ago
jwr | 3 hours ago
This reminds me of "Don't complain about the traffic: YOU are the traffic".
ajkjk | 3 hours ago
markus_maximus | 3 hours ago
jeanpah | 3 hours ago
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.
two_handfuls | 3 hours ago
fumar | 3 hours ago
Fizz43 | 3 hours ago
The web today sucks but i'd rather have it than only static sites.
asciimov | 3 hours ago
I miss the niche little websites, the ones built by people just trying to share something creative without trying to sell you something.
sublinear | 3 hours ago
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.
stuff4ben | 3 hours ago
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...
SirFatty | 3 hours ago
bryanlarsen | 3 hours ago
And once we have a concrete plan to replace the internet, what's preventing it from incubating parallel to the existing internet?
mannycalavera42 | an hour ago