People forget - or never realize, if they're new - that the "Hacker" in "Hacker News" refers to startup entrepreneurs "hacking" capitalism. This place used to be called "Startup News," after all.
Because when you show ID to buy age-restricted things in person, nobody is keeping a record of anything. A clerk looks at your ID and that's the end of it.
Online is a completely different beast on that count.
Governments have a terrible track record when it comes to privacy. Everything from the USPS selling your info when you move, to the 2 dozen texts I got yesterday because the government sells[1] your voting records on the cheap. Maybe you don't agree but surely you at least understand why people are widely worried about a future where the government decides to sell your adult website access records to make a few extra bucks.
They should be worried. Bad governance is bad. But people do want something to be done about ease with which children can access pornography online. A solution will eventually be imposed if the industry doesn't clean things up.
I don't disagree. The problem is that the solutions being talked about have a large negative impact far wider than the problem they're intended to address.
It is the parents responsibility to raise their children.
It's not my responsibility to have to show ID(I'm a grown adult, there is no mistaking me for someone 18 and below.. though I don't think there is any such laws in any country I would want to live in. this seems to be a fairly US centric world view).
"Think of the children"? That's the argument here?
At least right now (and, I posit, for the forseeable future), genAI is just a machine running a program. The idea of taking "AI welfare" seriously is extremely premature at best.
> I'd say it was less free and open when Microsoft controlled almost everyone's browsers
Now it's Google, so that situation hasn't changed any.
> What have they advocated for that has 'utterly failed'?
Privacy and keeping the web open, mostly. The privacy situation is worse now than ever, and the open web is continuing to shrink.
> It was less free and open in early days when users was restricted to specific types of work; for example, I think conducting business wasn't allowed.
When was this? I've been on the internet since before it was open to the general public, and I don't remember a time when users were restricted to specific types of work, nor a time when conducting business was not allowed.
> I don’t understand why many people are unwilling to believe that C-suite execs pushing for RTO genuinely believe in it.
I struggle to believe them because their arguments make no sense to me. The economic arguments do make sense (from the companies' point of view), so I lean toward the more coherent arguments as being closer to the truth.
This simply isn't true at all.
reply