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There's a a growing trend to close off publishing platforms by demanding a login in order to view the content. Which is a move away from an open web. In December 2015 Facebook launched its own in-app browser, which is basically a web-view that loads links you tap on using the Facebook app. It may provide convenience for some but the primary goal is to keep users inside the application longer. This opens up more advertising exposure and associated revenue. This poses a challenge to the open web because this overrides the user's default mobile browser keeps the eyeballs in a closed ecosystem. The feature Instant Articles for publishers is done such that it loads articles available nearly instantly in the app compared to a mobile browser. This opens up for monetizing viewing and privacy invasions by Facebook on users. The in-app browser lack decent privacy controls.
Facebook is trying to accomplish a closed version of the internet. The Free Basics initiative with Facebook as the gatekeeper offers users free access to select websites. This initiative made privacy advocates in India, who play an instrumental role in the makeup of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to vote on 2016-02-08 that all data pricing must be equal, and that companies cannot offer cheaper rates than others for certain content. The decision favours net neutrality and essentially bans Facebook's initiative in that country. The Indian TRAI ruling states that pricing must be content agnostic. Facebook has become a monolithic platform that tries to mimic existing services by offering video uploads (YouTube), money transfers (PayPal) etc. Facebook is expanding like a invasive species similar to the Borg from Star Trek trying to absorb everything that touches their sphere of interest.
In the future, could resistance be futile because you will miss out essential information?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 18 2016, @04:13PM
Yes, but idiots on Facebook don't have any 'essential information' that I need. So a closed prison camp, er . . ., um, I should put a more positive spin on it . . . um, so a walled garden won't affect me. Because it won't contain anything I need.
Technical materials. Open source projects. Programming language and library tutorials and reference materials. News. Science news. Etc.
And, there are plenty of other online forums. I think I have one open in my browser this very moment. And it's not within facebook's walled garden of idiots.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Saturday March 19 2016, @08:11AM
It's a battle of eye balls. Because other services you need will be affected by this eventually.
(so wreck any intrusion to the open web ecosystem)