The concept is good. It is in the right direction.
I think it needs to not have a dependence on github. This is a microsoft thing, and at best it means this will become another way for a corporation to make money from people.
Speaking of money, it needs to be paid for. (The github part is free from Microsloth and so is NOT free). So how do you pay for this? Micropayments.
So we need a system of micropayments. Then we need it to provide a way to help people economically. These are not barriers, because this is hacker news, instead this is an accurate understanding of more of the problem.
People keep talking about a collaborative internet without using the term. But to be clear we are talking about a fundamentally different kind of internet. That we can build.
It doesn't really seem to have a dependence on github, so much as a dependence on git. You can push to a git repo anywhere, even publish a site with it. For example the method I've used is no longer documented on the open web but an archive is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20220817005415/https://neurobin....
Also I think you're confusing "free as in beer" and "free as in free" here. The last thing any alternative social network needs is to bake capitalist incentives into the model, as that would just lead to everything optimizing for the same dark patterns and influencer garbage people want to avoid. There already exist plenty of ways to help people economically.
It is the corporate internet - the one by the corporation, for the corporation that is dead. Or at least everything in it is dead. The death blow is AI, but it was almost there anyway.
The good news is that the community internet - for the community, by the community - is just starting.
What is a community internet? The internet is layered protocols. UDP, ICMP, TCP, HTTP, HTTPS etc. The community internet is just a new layer of protocols. Coming soon.
I initially read this as "I want to experience aloneness, how do I do it". I read it that way because to me, being alone is an incredibly wonderful and useful experience. You can know things when you are alone that you cannot otherwise know. Like your true size in the universe. There is nothing like being alone at night, outside, when the temperature is 20 without anything or anyone around you.
This is not something you will experience when being alone, locked in a room or a building. Or surrounded by people. You need to be in the wild, in nature. Do it.
In those moments of being alone you learn something that allows you to be more alive. More deeply in the world. And a way to give you a context for not being alone.
So my first suggestion is to go someplace where you are completely alone and on your own for a while. Out in nature.
People can be the most wonderful creatures on earth. And the worst. There is a pretty good way to find them at their best, and it is hilarious. Go on a quest.
What is a quest? It is not an intellectual thing, it is a thing of the heart. It does not have to be a great thing, but it does have to be one that matters to you - you have to care about it.
For example, you might decide to spend the night outside, alone in the winter. Do not read a book about this. Start asking people. Tell them why you are going on your quest and ask them if they know anyone who can help you learn how.
Now the secret to a successful quest is to follow it. If someone says Joe and Josie know, then go ask Joe and Josie. And of course you are honor bound to actually do the quest. People are utterly wonderful about helping someone, so ask for help.
Finally, write. Get a fountain pen and a notebook (or cheat and get a ballpoint pen). Sit down. Set a timer for one hour and write. The goal is to write sentences continuously for one hour. It matters not what you write. If you want (and can actually do it) you can write the same one over and over, but it has to be some sentence - no matter how broken.
We all get stuck in the past. The cure for the past is the future, the new. You have open doors in front. One or more of those has better things than anything in your past. So go there.
The definitive reasons why you should NOT buy these products.
1. While the hardware and performance are amazing, the user interface is the opposite. Imagine buying a luxury car with amazing performance only to find that simply opening the door is a royal pain, each and every time.
2. Apple will downgrade the usability over time. A year from now, or two, Apple will downgrade your user experience. Imagine that in your luxury car you can see out the windshield, but the dealer insists that you install a new upgrade with a heads-up-display that cannot be turned off.
3. Apple will degrade the performance of your system over time by constantly introducing more features which require better hardware. Your sleek and fast computer will eventually become unusably slow.
4. Apple profits from preventing you from using the computer you own with other software, for example Linux. When your computer cannot run Mac OS (see #3) above or you get sick of the "features" (see #1 and #2 above), you will not be able to do so. The reason for this is if you could try Linux, there is is a strong possibility you will see just how user unfriendly Mac OS is and never go back.
5. You care about the environmental impact of your purchasing decisions. You understand that because you are not able to upgrade the hardware and operating system, your purchase is very likely to end up in a landfill.
1. Makes no sense.
2. not true.
3. You can turn features you don't like off, like the AI
4. False. The bootloader is not locked. Linux does work, but it would be nice if they activly worked on kernel modules for their hardware.
5. Macbooks have the longest shelf life of any consumer PC. Period.
Apple has created a social system - the company which causes this. Perhaps it could be called "The Next Big Thing" syndrome. In the past this worked for Apple. Unfortunately creating the "Next Big Thing" requires a creative process they collectively do not understand and are not able to instantiate. They could adopt another strategy, but doing so would be an admission that they do not have a clue. So instead they follow a cargo-cult system of enacting the side trappings without understanding the functionality.
Personally my guess is the core of the problem is their contempt for the users. The willingness to act directly against the best interest of the users, as this article points out so well, is bewildering. You just have to wonder that a company so large, with so much money and so many resources can be so utterly dysfunctional.
The iPhone, the iPod, the early Macs all demonstrated a profound understanding and care for users. And now? Contempt.
The top comment (right now) is saying this cannot be done. That is wrong. It is exactly the same as those people who said "We cannot build an internet because of [insert infinity of issues]". The one we are using for this discussion.
We live in a time where people somehow think they cannot make bread without a $400 (USD) bread making machine. We suffer from learned helplessness, paint-by-number syndrome, follow-the-leader syndrome, and cargo-cult thinking. We use recipes instead of developing skills.
Implementing "a web we own" is a hard and difficult problem. The poster is correct that ISP's are a problem. But if this learned helplessness is the top comment on "HACKER" News then there is something seriously wrong with how HN works.
This is NOT about the commenters. This is about a system of interaction - comments on HN - that seems to promote anything but hacking.
My apologies for the "rant" nature of this post, but there is a point here that I believe is worth stating. Or you know, just unfollow me, vote me down, and I probably misspelld some words along the way.
I agree. (Almost) Every problem that looks impossible to solve actually is not. People should not focus on "Why we cant do this because of current problems." but rather on "How could we possibly do this, considering the current problems?"
"By accessing this file more than one time per second you agree to pay a fee of $0.1 per access plus an additional $0.1 for each previous access each day. This fee will be charged on a per access basis."
2. Run a program that logs the number for Facebook requests and prints a summary and bill.
2. Then get a stamp, envelope and write out a bill for the first day, call it a demand for payment and send it to:
Facebook, Inc. Attn: Security Department/Custodian of Records 1601 S. California Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94304 U.S.A.
You can optionally send this registered mail, where someone has to sign for it.
Corporations such as FaceBook are used to getting their way in court because they can afford lawyers and you cannot. So they have gotten lazy and do not worry about what is fair or legal.
So take them to court when you have a legitimate legal issue. The courts are there to provide redress when you are aggrieved. Right? Use the courts. You can file a small claims action easily. Just make sure you have 1) a legitimate case, 2) evidence 3) have sent them a demand for payment.
You can't just make a one sided contract agreement like that though. Just like I can't tell anyone that by reading this comment they agree to pay me (as another commenter pointed out).
Somehow the fundamentals of places like linkedin, gmail, google, facebook, etc have eluded people.
1. they are selling you as a target.
2. some people, governments, groups, whatever are willing to pay a lot of money to obtain information about you.
3. why would someone pay good money to target you unless they were going to profit from doing so. are they stupid? no.
4. where does that profit come from? If some one is willing to pay $100 to target you, how are they going to recoup that money?
5. From you.
There is simply no other way this can have worked for this long without this being true.
It is a long causal change, so it is fair to ask whether there is any empirical evidence. If this is true we would expect to see ...? Well how about prices going up? Well how about in general people are less able to afford housing, food, cars, etc.
I'm speculating here, but perhaps it is predictability. There is a common time warp fantasy about being able to go back and guess the future. You go back and bet on a sports game. If I can predict what you are going to do then I can place much more profitable bets.
Do the corporations that participate in this scheme provide mutual economic benefit? Do they contribute to the common wealth or are they parasitical?
No one likes to think they have parasites. But we all do these days.
Here’s the problem I have with your take (even if I agree): LinkedIn has a product to sell. You’re not supposed to be the product, because companies pay to advertise job postings, they sell career tools, sales tools, etc.
At what point is that not enough for them to stop doing data brokerage or sharing?
They want to be targeted by companies for jobs. Or when they’re applying for a job, they want to be easily found by people at that company so they can see more information.
If you don’t want those things, you don’t need a LinkedIn page.
> Do the corporations that participate in this scheme provide mutual economic benefit? Do they contribute to the common wealth or are they parasitical?
You wrote a long hand wavey post but you stopped short of answering your own question.
The corporations who pay LinkedIn are doing so to recruit people for jobs. I’ve purchased LinkedIn premium for this purpose at different times.
After “targeting” those LinkedIn users, I eventually hired some of them for jobs. There’s your mutual economic benefit. This is why people use LinkedIn.
> It is a long causal change, so it is fair to ask whether there is any empirical evidence. If this is true we would expect to see ...? Well how about prices going up? Well how about in general people are less able to afford housing, food, cars, etc.
You think the root cause of inflation is… social media companies? This is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. You’re just observing two different things and convinced they’re correlated, while ignoring the obvious rebuttal that inflation existed and affordability changes happened before social media.
> Somehow the fundamentals of places like linkedin, gmail, google, facebook, etc have eluded people.
I think most people understand the fundamentals of LinkedIn better than you do, to be honest. It’s not a mystery why people sign up and maintain profiles.
I’m not assuming anything. It’s a job market. Like all markets they operate on supply and demand.
In your example, so what if they give the job to the most desperate worker instead of a different one at a higher price? Are we supposed to prefer that the desperate worker does not get the job and instead it goes to someone else at a higher rate?
If someone is desperate for a job because they really need work, I’d prefer that a platform help them get matched with jobs. Wouldn’t you? I think you’re so focused on penalizing corporations that you’re missing the obvious.
Like all markets they can be monopolized. You are assuming quite a bit by presuming that the market works perfectly according to rather basic economic principles.
There are all kinds of reasons someone could be more desperate. Perhaps they have a significant skills gap. Perhaps they don't have citizenship. Perhaps their health care options are artificially limited. You invoke supply and demand but you narrow your focus to a single interface when it's obvious that wouldn't be appropriate.
It's not about "penalizing corporations" it's about "being honest about their motives." Unlike many on HN I refuse to handwave away this thorny and uncomfortable process.
Beautifully written, I saved your post to send the next friend or relative who asks me why I am so hard-over on privacy. I enjoyed working at Google hears ago as a contractor, and they are my ‘favorite’ tech company - the only mega-tech company who’s services I regularly use, but I am constantly mindful of their business model as I use YouTube, GCP, and their various dev APIs.
Except, I only use services I pay for and set tight privacy settings.
EDIT: sorry for the initial short reply, your comment deserved a more reasoned response: I build my digital life on two primary service providers:
Proton: mail, cloud storage, and Luma private LLM chat (integrated web search tool with a strong Mistral model: my default tool that replaces plain web searches, 90% of my routine ‘LLM chat’ use)
Google: Gemini APIs, occasional use of Gemini for deep research, very occasional use of AntiGravity for coding using Claude and Gemini models, YouTube Plus for entertainment (philosophy talks, nature videos, Qi Gong exercise, etc. etc.)
Also some use of:
DuckDuckGo: when I still do web search, DDG is my default.
> Somehow the fundamentals of places like linkedin, gmail, google, facebook, etc have eluded people.
LinkedIn is slightly different, as it's fundamentally framed as a job board and recruiting platform. The paying customers are recruiters, and the product is access to the prospective candidates. Hence, LinkedIn offering for free services such as employee verification, work history verificarion, employee vouching, etc.
I think it needs to not have a dependence on github. This is a microsoft thing, and at best it means this will become another way for a corporation to make money from people.
Speaking of money, it needs to be paid for. (The github part is free from Microsloth and so is NOT free). So how do you pay for this? Micropayments.
So we need a system of micropayments. Then we need it to provide a way to help people economically. These are not barriers, because this is hacker news, instead this is an accurate understanding of more of the problem.
People keep talking about a collaborative internet without using the term. But to be clear we are talking about a fundamentally different kind of internet. That we can build.
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