This is silly. The web is not in decline and Google is not at fault. Most of the web is garbage, and Google helps us find the information buried in a sea of ads and repetitively copied/reworded content. We are moving to a world where putting up a plagiarized page with tons of ads will not be profitable. The sooner that day arrives, the better.
and you know why all the copying/rewording or why all recipes include three paragraphs about how the author first discovered the dish during their trip to Toscania in 1997? because they're trying to game Google's requirements and get included in their search results.
Just want to thank everyone here, reading this, on the decentralized unbought future of the web. We all collectively made the content, be it posting, commenting, making the yt videos or writing the articles..
Big tech didn't make the world of the Internet or the data within, we did; all big tech did was steal it from us. They erected walls to exclude us from the gardens we built and planted.
Just by being here and participating, you are making the difference. Keep making content because if your passions and because you like to. Keep commenting, shit posting, debating, arguing, and being debaucherous. The future is ours, not theirs.
I agree with you for the most part, but you omitted the symbiotic (or even mutualistic) relationship users and platforms have. For example, Google provides a video platform, and user provide the videos. Such a transaction comes with a contract we all neglected to read, but accepted regardless. As far as the contract is concerned, both parties should be fine with this situation. Nobody is stealing anything.
Obviously, this situation has quite a few problems, and the Fediverse addresses many of them. However, self hosting text, audio and video doesn’t happen for free, just like Google can’t run their servers for free. Either you pay directly to the devs and admins, or you find other creative ways to make money flow. That’s where the Fediverse and commercial platforms differ greatly.
Don't be so sure. Google has ridiculous power over the internet. Worst case we might have to create a new network. But I hope we will if it's necessary.
*Still, as the first day of I/O wound down, it was hard to escape the feeling that the web as we know it is entering a kind of managed decline. Over the past two and a half decades, Google extended itself into so many different parts of the web that it became synonymous with it. And now that LLMs promise to let users understand all that the web contains in real time, Google at last has what it needs to finish the job: replacing the web, in so many of the ways that matter, with itself. *
I had actually read this article the day it came out, but I didn’t think too much of that paragraph until a couple days later at a dinner full of folks working on decentralization. Someone brought up that quote, though paraphrased it slightly differently, claiming Casey was saying that Google was actively putting* the web into managed decline*.
Whether or not that’s very different (and maybe it’s not), both should spark people to realize that this is a problem.
Our bots have sucked up everyone’s sites, so screw your web we got it all at the Evil Store.
World's most popular search engine, video platform, mobile OS, browser engine, email provider, map provider, shall I go on? Search results at this point are just becoming an astrix.
They're trying to suck up and present as much data as possible so people never have to leave Google's services. They want to be the internet. If you enabled people to be independent, private, decentralized, and open, then Google would be in trouble because suddenly individuals and communities would have all the power and data, not some corp that's hellbent on wasting your lifespan and brain space with ads or whatever other garbage decision they make on Tuesday to make their line go up.
Man, I live right next door in Utah, and we don't get any of the cool stuff. No legal weed (we have medical though), no right to repair, our "Idaho stop" law is worse, and no baseball team or football team. But at least we're getting a hockey team, so I guess that's cool.
Good on you Colorado, maybe someday my state will be cool. But instead, we pass stupid anti-porn, anti-social media, and anti-trans laws (but at least the people are rising up against the anti-trans law).
And weird liquor laws as well. Epic Brewing has a beer called Escape to Colorado because they could not make it in Utah. Also love that state it’s so pretty
Colorado actually went thought a similar thing about 7 years ago. Could only buy 3.2 beer at a grocery store. Every grocery store had a liquor store close to it so not a big deal at all
Idk, it's kind of a big deal because ours close on holidays and Sundays, so you can't just pick up your favorite booze last-minute, you need to plan ahead.
I grew up in WA where grocery stories frequently had a liquor section (required ID) and wine was available on the regular shelves, so it's kind of weird here. I don't drink though, so it doesn't really affect me, but I still think it's stupid.
I grew up in Florida, where you can buy hard liquor in some gas stations, and now I live in Minnesota, which is now the last state with 3.2 beer - but we got Sunday liquor sales a few years ago (possibly because everyone in the Twin Cities would just go to Wisconsin if they wanted beer on Sunday) and now legal weed. A lot of grocery stores have attached liquor stores and it's not a big deal, but it's still silly.
EDIT: we also passed a right to repair law last year. We're flat Colorado for cheap!
We have state-run liquor stores, and nobody else is allowed to sell anything harder than beer and hard lemonade (except restaurants and bars can sell prepared drinks). So stores with attached liquor stores just aren't a thing, and generally speaking, the liquor store is a few blocks away from the nearest grocery (one major exception is a liquor store near an Asian market).
That said, I hear the state-run liquor stores are pretty good, and they'll get pretty much any kind of liquor you ask for if they don't stock it.
I don't really understand the point though. Why not just open it up, tax it, and require checking id? Kids still drink here, and they get it the same way they do in areas with looser liquor laws: someone buys it for them.
I used to live in a small Minnesota town and the only liquor store was run by the city. The prices were reasonable for how rural we were, and apparently some of the profits helped with city expenses. However, there was a grocery store 15 years ago or so that apparently wanted to open in the town and also have it's own liquor store, but the town denied their permits for the liquor store for officially unclear reasons, lol.
Getting someone else to buy it isn't actually the only way kids get it in states with really loose liquor laws - when I was a teen, I heard of a few places, mostly gas stations, that never carded. Eventually they got busted by the cops, but they sold a lot of booze to my friends before that happened. I don't think that's justification for exclusively state run liquor stores though. But I bet the people working at government run stores get better benefits and more stable hours than the ones working for private businesses...
Cool, I feel like there are probably some loopholes but its a step in the right direction.
My only concern is that having different laws for each state may make it hard for companies to comply and it may even lead to "location locked" devices.
I doubt it, they'll probably just go for the least common denominator, which is generally what happens with California's laws (I see lots of "this may cause cancer in California" warnings on stuff, and I've never lived in Cali). Or the USB-C thing on iPhones due to EU laws and cookie banners due to EU and Cali laws.
That would only be a concern if Colorado is the only market since they're pretty small, but we're seeing traction in other states, so we're more likely to see companies just roll out most things to most states.
They will likely discriminate a bit if you don't live in one of the states (e.g. on warranties), but I doubt they'll have a state filter for parts and whatnot because that probably costs more than just rolling it out to everyone.
My only concern is that having different laws for each state may make it hard for companies to comply and it may even lead to “location locked” devices.
Given how difficult it is to pass consumer protection laws without lots of loopholes, it's possible that the different laws in each region could work to our advantage: A corporation might sensibly decide to observe all the protections globally, rather than exploiting regional exceptions and loopholes, making the patchwork of laws act almost like a whole blanket. That wouldn't be legally enforced, of course, but it would be better than nothing.
In principle, all these state laws could also inform creation of a single, more comprehensive federal law. Here's hoping.
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