SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for FatPhil
The man who invented the web says it's now dysfunctional with 'perverse' incentives
Thirty years ago, the World Wide Web was born.
But over the next 30 years, it needs to be "changed for the better," according to its inventor.
British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee laid out his vision for an information management system, which would become the World Wide Web, in March 1989. The blueprint would radically transform society as half the world's population went online in just three decades. But in a letter published Monday marking the web's 30th anniversary, Berners-Lee said he understands concerns that the internet is no longer a "force for good."
"The fight for the web is one of the most important causes of our time," Berners-Lee said.
[...]An open web has been a sticking point for Berners-Lee. From the outset, he chose to make the underlying code of the World Wide Web available to anyone without a fee.
Berners-Lee said the system has since been designed with "perverse" incentives, which he sees as the second source of dysfunction in the web today. He singled out ad-based revenue models, used by many tech giants like Google and Facebook, that reward "clickbait and the viral spread of misinformation."
[...]"Companies must do more to ensure their pursuit of short-term profit is not at the expense of human rights, democracy, scientific fact or public safety," he said in the letter Monday.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday March 13 2019, @04:00PM (9 children)
Advertising destroys every medium it ever touches.
Billboards seemed innocuous. End result: some formerly nice landscapes littered with billboards as far as the eye can see, especially on interstate highways. City blocks littered with astonishing amounts of visual noise from ads and billboards. Then electric commercial signs. Now electronic road billboards. Even in remote areas to keep people awake who wouldn't have been bothered by city lights.
Magazines. They eventually become more ads than content. But BYTE magazine is famous for this. At first the ads were useful. Later you couldn't find the articles for the ads. Then the content changed to become IBM-PC centric. Then it became a teaser of what we would know as Computer Shopper, pure ads.
Newspapers.
Radio. A vast wasteland.
TV. A vast wasteland.
Cable TV. At first an alternative if you were sick of network tv. And the promise of no ads since you paid for cable. And we see how long that lasted. By the end of cable TV, after an ad, there would be animated bugs and animated characters that would walk out onto the screen right over the top of the content you were trying to watch; sometimes obscuring important information that was part of the plot.
The Web. At first an amazing collection of useful information. Then commercial web sites (eg, "Disney') that provided useful information and services. And sites like . . . uh . . . um . . . "the green site". And we see how that one ended up. Then major news sites on the web, which was fine, when the ads were not overwhelming. But there is no counter force. Nothing to ever police advertising. And no apparent limits to how far advertising will go.
Now advertisers think it is their natural God given right to track every last detail of your life from the cradle to the grave. And possibly beyond.
And advertisers think it is their right to execute code on my system instead of just showing me static or moving images.
Some now view the web as a "broadcast" medium. Including even your local ISP viewing it this way.
Stupid people exist because nothing in the food chain eats them anymore.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday March 13 2019, @04:34PM (7 children)
What alternative is there to advertising, other than taking sites off the Web that aren't hobby, charity, or selling physical goods? The first that come to mind have fundamental drawbacks:
I can think of a couple other models that might work better, but their implementation in practice leaves something to be desired.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday March 13 2019, @04:39PM (2 children)
I don't know the answers. But I do know that the web was
* very useful
* a lot less cluttered
* a lot less noise
* a lot fewer 'social media influencers'
before the commercialization of the web happened.
There was no Facebook! It's hard to imagine. But it's true!
Stupid people exist because nothing in the food chain eats them anymore.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Wednesday March 13 2019, @06:04PM (1 child)
*citation needed*
Seriously, if it wasn't blinking text, it was gifs, or the like. Once it ceased to be a research play thing. It quickly evolved into the bastardized advertisement delivery system that it is today.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @06:30PM
Yes, just like radio and TV. Our real problem with the internet is that there is insufficient demand to turn the ISP into an open dumb pipe where the filtering is done at our end. Our only hope under these circumstances is a technology that can circumvent the ISP turnstiles. We have to stop begging for our rights, and take them!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday March 13 2019, @04:44PM (3 children)
Other than SN, what are the other examples of useful sites that might need one of these revenue models?
eg, NOT facebook, twitter, or any of the anti-social media sites
And a question? Would it be so bad if people had to pay to use Facebook / Twitter?
I already pay for some things already. Google Drive storage -- because I don't want anyone to know what files I put into the cloud. /s
Stupid people exist because nothing in the food chain eats them anymore.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday March 13 2019, @05:01PM (2 children)
Sites that publish the results of original investigative journalism need a way to fund said journalism. The usual suspects: NYT, WSJ, WaPo, NBC News, CBS News...
Gab, a microblog host that competes with Twitter, offers a "pro" subscription for $60 per year billed quarterly through Bitcoin [gab.com].
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday March 13 2019, @05:19PM (1 child)
The last thing that was keeping me on Cable TV was CNN. I quit watching CNN in mid 2013 out of pure disgust. Then I was able to get rid of Cable TV completely.
I would probably pay for something resembling a cable news channel. (And maybe I already even do without realizing.)
Switching topic:
What did it with CNN was two things:
1. They didn't cover SOPA one bit. Until . . . the big internet blackout when they could no longer ignore it. And they said they hadn't covered it because that was the wishes of their ownership. But that wasn't quite enough to push me over the edge.
2. Snowden. CNN didn't even make a pretense of being objective as if there might be more than one point of view. I gave it a chance. It was clear they were deliberately favoring the government. I was at that point done forever with them.
Stupid people exist because nothing in the food chain eats them anymore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @02:42PM
CNN is biased and not objective in its reporting? Say it ain't so!!! /s
All the network news and cable news channels have the same problem today. They are all highly biased and not objective. They are all crap. And millions of people are watching them and allowing themselves to be told what to think. People need to wake up just like you did.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday March 14 2019, @01:43AM
Keep in mind advertising is not an end but a mean to an end.
Then think what is the actual end the advertising chases.
Then think what the destruction of media or 'nice landscapes' say about that end.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford