Web economics

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Who do these people think they are? Do they actually think their "content" is worth shit? Most of the time, they bring nothing of value whatsoever. All they do is rehash some old stuff, perhaps get chatgpt to throw in a bunch of filler, and then place a bunch of ads between each paragraph of filler. And then they add megabytes of javascript for analytics, for them so-called FRAMEWERKS, ad-blocker-blockers, and overlays to keep you from being able to see the website to try to force you to "accept all cookies", so that the actual content that you come here for accounts for probably less than 1% of the megabytes that they force upon you on each visit, not to mention the self-DDOSing practice of using cloudflare which prevents anyone with less than a full-fledged 5G connection in order to access what in principle is a text document.

Who indeed do these people think they are? Do they actually think they are providing anything of value? Or do they like to coerce people into dealing with all this crap just for fun? Are they sadists, and their intended audience a bunch of masochists? Is the web 2.0 indeed some kind of big BDSM club and I just didn't get the memo? On the other hand, webdev really feels to me like masochism of the worst kind. But behind all of this, I am told, there is some sense or reason, that reason being the big poison that is killing individuals, societies, and the very planet we live in, of course, I am talking about money. Some big masochism club indeed.

It seems, then that people don't do this for fun, even if it's some kind of wicked, crooked kind of fun that enjoys meaningless toil and drudgery, the fun of the dumpster diver that doesn't even expect the occassional gold ring but rather an old jejune half-eaten macdonalds meal as the ultimate reward. No, believe it or not, people seem to do this for a living. I have talked about superstructures already, and it seems people have collectively put a great deal of man hours into making this whole architecture of pointlessness and bad taste in order to squeeze some form of profit from virtually nothing, it's value being precisely the vast complexity that has accumulated from millions of monkeys attempting their hand at shakesperean composition.

I remember the old times when they spoke of the highway of information, now it looks like the streets of some anglo-american city, full of trash, tents, and rocking fentanil addicts. Only here it is not fentanil that they are addicted to, but something a lot worse. They call it "algorithms", but I know what an algorithm is, and I know what they are really addicted to, and, oddly enough, it is frustration. I never ever thought anyone could be addicted to frustration, but here they are, and they are all making a big profit from their frustration addiction.

But I come back to my original question: who do they think they are? Do they actually believe that whatever crap they produce brings any value whatsoever, do they think I cannot just circumvent all their blocks in one way or another, or, even better, a whole lot better actually, just leave their ruinous city of obtrusive ad bondage and just get what I need from infinitely more decent sources that do not coerce me into consenting to give them my life in a silver platter for them to render meaningless and, well, devoid of life? Do they actually believe that I would spend one more minute putting up with their steaming pile of sterile manure that they have any hope of getting anything at all from me? How many newsletters written by amateur snake oil salesmen do they expect me to subscribe to, and how do they figure a spam ridden mail account will make me want to fall for the next nigerian scammer who tries to pull the most obvious tricks to get me to reveal every detail from my bank account?

I insist, and I really wonder, do they actually believe their unsightly dumpster has anything for me to look at, let alone consider actually immersing myself into a sea of despair and frustration, that I would want to spend a single minute pretending there is anything there I couldn't find a lot more easily, and instantly, just looking elsewhere, pereferably away from the sight of any screen?

Now they sell whole computers just designed to try to convince you, really trying to convince you that this is what life is, just hooked up to some crappy app, completely given up on my will, just trying to figure out what the next big fad is to spend most of my energy chasing the faintest of lights in an eternal descent into the abyss where everybody throws their feces.

I really can't believe so many people have opted into this world of pain, and on top of that, make it their lives. I am glad I dodged the bullet by being born some 10 years before it would be too late.

shoebx

I really can't believe so many people have opted into this world of pain, and on top of that, make it their lives.

It's simple: people have no idea that there's even an alternative. People think that computers, "smart"phones and whatever form of computing device they're using is nothing but an appliance, just like a television.

They have no digital self-consciousness and it's not their fault; I've seen people consistently feel relieved and thankful to me when I show them some new way of lightening their digital life, be it disabling ads in some way or, in general, telling them that there's an alternative to the life they're having on their silly little glass rectangles.

There should be more education on the matter but all that ever gets taught to people is at most how to use some "office" software which is, in other words, a set of digital appliances. Back to square one.

Some say that they know what they're going into, be it with the ever-addicting form of consumption everybody indulges in or the "enshittification" of their favourite "service", but only then I understand your confusion.

As long as the person is actually aware of their choices, more power to them, otherwise, educate 'em!

detritus

Ever the optimist, I see...

~bartender, do you have any sort of "reality drink" for my friend?

I have long given up on the idea that people remain ignorant by anything but their own will. It is still called the "information highway", after all. And if you choose to remain ignorant with such an abundance of information at your fingertips, then you cannot keep claiming ignorance as a way to escape your own responsibility to educate yourself and seek a way out of a crappy situation.

Of course by 'you' I mean them! Actually I mean everybody.

Look again, everybody is aware of how the so-called "algorithms" cause addiction, and yet they choose to get hooked. What governs the current web seems to me to be little more than sheer bad taste, and, as I already said, some kind of masochism.

Indeed, I have come to realize that people who flock to the big activity hubs, like people who like to frequent big social gatherings and like to party, are people who actually like the state of affairs, the kind of passions that tend to result in injury and malady.

Yes, I have some contempt for the human race, how can one not, seeing what they have done to an otherwise beautiful planet?

shoebx

I am an excessively optimist person, yes. That said, I think there might also be some differences in the sample backing your experience and mine.

Yes, the older people, who saw the web grow, most often know what poison they're picking (and while I condemn said choices, more power to them); the younger folks instead, from my experience, don't have any idea of what's going on outside their algorithmical bubble.

You've seen those "algorithms" pop up and can see the parting lines between them and the rest of the world, but anybody born in, say, the 2000s probably was too young to remember or was already born in the monopolies. When all your life you've seen shadows, how can you know that you're in a subset of a bigger world?

You cannot search something you have no idea exists.

Even adult developers sometime conflate GitHub (monopolistic service) with Git itself (the actual thing being offered on said service), so something more nuanced must me going on.

Ploum (Lionel Dricot), in his latest english writing (note that it's mostly about a different subject), had a paragraph to say about this:

There’s a generational divide here. Brilliant coders now on the market or in the free software space have never known a world without Google, Facebook and Github. Their definition of software is "something running in the browser". Even email is, for them, a synonym for the proprietary messaging system called "Gmail" or "Outlook". They contribute to FLOSS on Github while chatting on Slack or Discord, sharing specifications on Google Drive and advertising their project on Twitter/X. They also often have an iPhone and a Mac because "shiny". They cannot imagine an alternative world where monopolies would not be everywhere. They feel that having nice Github and Linkedin profiles where they work for free is the only hope they have to escape unemployment. Who can blame them? They cannot imagine a world without monopolies. They don’t search, they Google, they don’t shop online, they go on Amazon, they don’t read a book but a Kindle, they don’t take a coffee but a Starbucks

https://ploum.net/2024-07-01-opensource_sustainability.html
gemini://ploum.net/2024-07-01-opensource_sustainability.gmi

I really think that a lot of young people don't even know that they have a choice. I'm not sure if that's naivety, optimism or something else altogether.

inquiry

> Who do these people think they are?

Precisely what they think they are. Do the details really matter given the self-referential flimsiness of the mechanism?

I think the more important question is: why does it bother you? You think you're a specific person too, right? Should I be upset with/over who you think you are? Isn't that your mental business?

Now, if they're harming you in some way, that's something else. But if you're harming you over who they think they are, well... sounds like maybe some meditation on the underlying mechanism is in order.

Said another way, who you think you are seems to include taking issue with what others think they are.

Yeah, I know... it gets weird quickly when you lift the hood. But perhaps it beats remaining puzzled?

BTW, money isn't a problem: it's a medium for negotiating need and greed. It works pretty okay for need, but greed vastly overvalues it, which tends to be a problem. Cease and desist the greed, and money no longer seems to be a problem.

FWIW, the greed itself is closer to the actual problem, which is the conviction of being a free-willed being separate from all else, and thus in perpetual greedy need of other-than-self. That lift and separate (as it were...) from the rest somehow generates an unquenchable longing. But it kind of makes sense it should work that way, doesn't it? I mean, wondering why one is without/wanting in the shadow cast by considering oneself separate from the rest?

> I remember the old times when they spoke of the highway
> of information, now it looks like the streets of some
> anglo-american city, full of trash, tents, and rocking
> fentanil addicts. Only here it is not fentanil that they
> are addicted to, but something a lot worse. They call
> it "algorithms", but I know what an algorithm is, and I
> know what they are really addicted to, and, oddly enough,
> it is frustration. I never ever thought anyone could be
> addicted to frustration, but here they are, and they are
> all making a big profit from their frustration addiction.

Where is this highway? Does it exist if you stop thinking about it?

Let the thoughts about it go, and "Poof!" it's gone.

Same with who others think they are.

Maybe take up whittling, or some other mind diversion?

I say these things because I'm on and off anxious about doing this online stuff. I can't decide whether it is or isn't a waste of time mostly frustrating the hell out of me. But note the word 'decide'. Once that happens (and it's purely a mental operation), the anxiety is gone for having let the cat either live or die. Boom!

Damn, this fence sitting! But nobody's making me do it but me, so....

Maybe something similar is going on with you?

Beat 'em, join 'em, or forget about 'em seems a reasonable set of anxiety-terminating options.

NOTE: I'm not saying I'm any good at that. It's just thoughts coming to mind, fingers teaming with a keyboard of a computer allegedly connected to something bigger and beyond-er, and... well, it - doing this right now - has been fun so far!

> I really can't believe so many people have opted into this
> world of pain, and on top of that, make it their lives. I
> am glad I dodged the bullet by being born some 10 years
> before it would be too late.

Me too! I don't know how many times I've told my wife I'm pretty sure we're amongst the lucky ones scheduled to pass just before the entire shit show collapses upon itself, because the only other solution is for all of us to become other than as we are, but each of us believes who we think we are is too special to give up on doubling down on who we think we are.

So collapse it shall/must be!

Try not to think about it, though.... ;-)

detritus

I argue that you are wrong about money. Sure, in principle money is just a tool for mediating value, for setting up prices, which is after all how the market operates, blah blah blah, modern economic theory...

But money also encourages one little thing, which is, I believe, at the heart of why money is so harmful: hoarding. Money encourages hoarding, not only encourages, but actually makes it a necessity. For one thing there is inflation, for another the fear that tomorrow all your wealth may disappear (ironically, that hoarded money itself runs the greater risk of disappearing), so you need to hoard as much as possible, and the best way to hoard it, is by the use of money. There is also the fact that wealth is worth nothing anymore, only money. Real wealth has been reduced to it's ability to produce money, not the other way around.

So yeah, money is the problem.

inquiry

That sounds reasonable and consistent.

But I can't agree given I know neither I nor many others I've known hoarded money despite using money.

What you're saying seems akin to blaming alcohol for alcoholism.

fab

To say it with Leonard Cohens words, which really describes enshittification:

Everybody knows the war is over

Everybody knows the good guys lost

That's how it goes

And everybody knows.

detritus

enshittification

I forget there is a technical term for "the current state of the internet", I also hear it mentioned as "late stage capitalism", but I have seen it's a bit of a polemic name for it, I do think it's a good approximation to the problem, but it too easily puts the blame on capitalism, and while I think capitalism is to blame, the issue runs deeper than that....

Well, this is a thread about 'web economics' after all :-)

Anyway, whoever it is to blame, the issue is actually more or less limited to the big hubs like google, which is nigh worthless today, and stuff like reddit and, well a lot of sites which I have no problem whatsoever avoiding completely.

That is more or less the point of my little rant, that this "information gutter" is completely avoidable. If I get irritated enough to rant about it, it's not to be taken as a symptom of a -what was it that I called it?- frustration addiction.