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- It's time to pay!
It's Time to PAY!
Dear enjoyers of the web, the social networks and free search engines. I have a bad news for you.
It's time to pay the real price for it.
Not so long ago, it was the time of free money, where the central banks paid banks to have more money to redistribute to everybody. But this time is reaching an end. Now, it is time to engrange more liquidities. And this mean, it costs a lot more to
Perhaps there is a relation perhaps none. But if you haven't paid attention to the world of web companies, then… The message is clear:
IT IS TIME TO PAY
So Netflix, push more money.
Youtube… make ads-blocker life a lot more difficult.
Twitter and Reddit, hey, of course, let's use our control over API to force our UI to all our users, no way to bypass our ads now. And we can gather more metrics about you to also improve the ROI of our ads. And why not, add some new feature whose ovious goal is… make our user pay more.
Google… now that we control the most popular browser, the most popular search engine, can impose some web standard to everyone de-facto. Hey, let's provide a way to ensure any website could only be used via a few controlled clients. The goal, again the same, by coupling the client with the server, it is impossible for anyone to create a non-controlled way to use the server. And so it is impossible to block ads, impossible to hide your profile (even your identity if needed).
I repeat, to me it seems the message is clear.
IT'S FINALLY TIME TO PAY THE FULL PRICE FOR THESE PREVIOUSLY FREE SERVICES.
So we could react differently. The first obvious reaction from the user perspective is that the situation is just worse for the users. Final point.
But I think the situation is more complex. These company could afford to offer these service for free for a long time. Because the money came from a bet that in the future these company will earn tons of money. And currently they are. But apparently not enough. For some reason, they all want to make real money, NOW! Which is a strong reminder of the chiken with golden eggs story. Or is it?
I think they all waited as long as they could, because they were all afraid to see their user base flee at the first pressure. But, hey… Look what twitter did. The new CEO made a massive FUCK YOU to a big part of its own user base. And guess what, … THIS IS TOTALLY FINE.
As usual, only a minority of vocal people were impacted. Some left, some ranted, but the big majority didn't move more than a small rant. The company is still there, many people still use twitter… And even if this move will ultimately kill the company (which is not at all obvious) one thing is clear, they could make at least temporarily more money.
Netflix make it obvious that for the same service people should pay more. And… most did.
So yes, this is a fact, you could totally push anti-features to your customers. And most of your customer will eat it. Nice find!
Enough of a rant.
So to me, it is clear that the Google EMI is the biggest attack on the web as we all knew it. After this will be pushed on us, this is the end. A big part of the web will stop to be usable for:
- people with disabilities that need to consume the web with specific clients
- people using Linux
This will terminate the transition of a big part of the from, web of documents, to web of medias, to web of applications to web of products to … web of closed controlled products.
And to be honest, this is not all black. The web technologies are… to say the least, fragiles. This is so easy to make a small mistake that will completly break the security of your online application. With these kind of new technologies, the overall security of the product will be improved. The risk to have your personal data leaked will be reduced. The risk to have your account being hacked will also be reduced. For real.
So if you agree that, some products are goods, then, these technologies will improve the security. Think about a real "online application". Like an already closed application, that ask you for example to use only the recent version of Chrome, Safari or Firefox. That are already not compatible with other browsers. A tool that you need to pay to use. With the new startdards pushed by google, these product will improve their quality. Their security, but also their "portability". Because, if you target only very few clients, it is easier to test. The other clients, will simply be refused.
Again, this goes against the spirit of the Open Web. These is the closes Web. The monetized web. And I don't see how this could be prevented.
Alternative Nets
It becomes clear now, that the ads industry want to gather more money that the future of the web will be a web of products and no more a web of users.
The main distinction is that users do not want to monetize much, while products are backed by company that want to optimize the monetization of their products.
Typically, someone could produce videos and if they could gain a bit of money with it, and even enough for a living. This is for the best.
But a web of product, is a web of very few giants websites were all users activity are centralized. So every media you produce, text, images, videos should be in their system. They offer both producer and customer a great UI/UX. Make it easy to receive money, get feedback via comments, make it easy to find people with matching interest, etc… In return, you agree to either pay something or most commonly pay via ads.
Honestly, there is nothing wrong for company to want to make money. They provide a service, and happy customer pay for it. But a big issue was that all these services were totally free for a while, no payment, no ads. And now, ads are pushed into everyone eyeballs. And to improve the revenue from ads, they are gathering as much data from you as possible in order to create a personal profile and show you more and more precise ads, in a more and more efficient way. Efficient in the sense that the probably for you to click on the ad and finalize by a buy is higher.
So, the web started as a web of users, and has become almost exclusively a web of products and companies. That's simply a fact. In the beginning of the web, if you typed any kind of work in a search engine you mostly ended up to a personal website or a forum from a multitude of forums. There were ads, sometime very intrusive, but often not that much. The content were mostly text with a few images, like a magazine. Sometime you could get a few videos.
But now, there is too much money involved, giant company are "managing" the web as they control essential component of what makes the Web what it is. In particular Google. They control the most popular web browser as well as the most popular search engine, as well as the most popular ads-network. So… What could go wrong?
The latest "attack" on the old Web of users is "Web Environment Integrity". So let's be honest. For the Web of product, this will be a very positive change. You want to sell your product, whatever it is. Providing this products cost you money. So you want to only serve the product to valid users and prevent people from pirating or abusing your product. So a simple solution is to rely on a big player, say Google, Apple an Microsoft to prove that the client making a request really use a "valid" and controlled browser. So clients cannot lie, and use bots, or spam your other customers, etc…
On the other hand, for the Web of users, this is a terrible nightmare against the spirit of the Web. This would prevent users with disabilities that are using non-validated clients to access and consume the websites protected by this technology. This will make impossible to technically don't share your private data. Even with GDPR that will force these product-website to show you a clear question. If this technology become more popular, then rejecting this usage will simply result in a full ban of accessing your product. This is already the case for a few websites. But I think with this technology it will be harder to support serving your product for people rejecting data sharing.
I made a comment in lemmy about this and here is it:
> I don’t see how this could be prevented. > > There are already many “small web” movements. > With different proposals. > Like gemini, sub-set of currently supported web standards (typically no-js, > no-css, no POST, etc…) > > But the monetized web is doomed to reach a point were it will be controlled > in such a way that you will not be able to block ads, not be able to hide > your pseudonymous identity. > I remember reading an article many years ago about the cat and mouse game > between ads publishers and ad-blockers. > > The conclusion were that in the end, ads blocker will lose the final war. > And with these kind of system we are closer and closer to reach it. > I think we need to collectively find a way to have sub-nets. > > For example declare that our website conform to certain sub-net properties. > > - no-ads > - privacy (no cookie/no js/no user-agent header/no canvas, no css) - > - etc… > > The small webs are different for everyone. > > It would be very nice if we could put an HTML header that would list which > small webs pattern this page is compatible with. > And have a browser that would adapt to your preferences and also a way to > filter your small-web preferences in search engine. > The closest to this we have today is probably gemini. > But this a very small but friendly web. > I am sure we could find other solutions to create an alternative > “respecting his users” web.
So I would like to write a bit more about this. And useful concepts to discuss about it.
With experience I discover that we makes a very bad usage of concepts. And we are easily induced in error (I didn't say manipulated) by specific vocabulary that aggregated imprecise concepts. In fact, as the modern web grow, it is more and more important to be as imprecise as possible to gather as much people as possible. To optimize engagement, growth, etc… One dire consequence is an impoverishment of the quality of the discussion.
And this is a very old problem which will not be easily addressed. If you start to be too specific you loose too many people that are not expert, not even very familiar with the subject you are talking about. If you are not specific enough, your message is wrongly interpretted.
But another effect, is that some words start to disappear in favor of more impoverished ones. Because the imprecise words improve the popularity of your post. For example, it is very clear that if you show a single mathematical formula to a blog post, you lose many people. Simply because, this is like writing a full paragraph in another language in the middle of your article. If you don't speak it, this is are to continue. Even if you translate it later.
Useful concepts to talk about Web alternatives:
- Multitude of Small Webs. We often see "small web", while we should in fact use "small webs" (plural).
First there are many different proposal of web alternatives. Most of them want to be more or less difficult to monetize. Each proposal as its advantages and errors.
Associated with the small web is the terrible realization that discoverability becomes again a major issue. How could you prevent to protect against spam, scam, etc…
Closer to this is the notion of "social network". And decentralized social network. And not far from here, the notion of monetization. Also a notion of Web of products / Web of applications / Web of documents, etc…
Proposal a future Open Web
Before writing this section I wrote a long lament about the predictable future of the web, and at large. The future of the computer-related world.
But, hey, I will make it a lot shorter.
If you didn't pay attention recently is clear that many products on the that were proposed for free, or mostly free changed their politic. It is time to pay. So we can clearly make a distinction between a monetized web, and a free web. Or I would like to make it broader by saying a monetized Internet, and a free Internet, even if recently for most people Internet is only the Web.
In reaction to these changes, there are more and more discussion about "The Small Web". And before going further, let me just say there are multiple propositions and the small web means different things to different people. Small Web does not necessarily means to prevent monetization, nor, necessarily protecting our privacy, nor necessarily have an improved experience for disabled people, nor necessarily a web of document vs a web of applications. Etc…
So my wish:
Have a web without most "Web" features.