Yesterweb asks a simple question, "Can't we have one thing, one measly crumb-of-a-thing, not tainted by capitalism?" And the resounding response is "NO."
> Yesterweb asks a simple question, "Can't we have one thing, one
measly crumb-of-a-thing, not tainted by capitalism?" And the
resounding response is "NO."
The answer is "Yes, but at a cost". One must subsidise the parasitic
nature of digital capitalism.
Many of the comments here are about the style or mechanisms of the
web, but don't talk much about the values - which are sharing. The
object is to give some value to the world, sharing a little of the
creation you do.
I've set up websites with HOWTO essays, code examples, mp3 files of
sound effects I collected, interesting images etc. In the early days
it was popular and well regarded amongst a music coding community, but
within 10 years it was inoperable. Bots crawling all over it
constantly sucked the life out of the server, and literally tens of
thousands of parasitic links from commercial entities, spamdexers
and SEO trash attached themselves. My site was like a ship dragged
down by barnacles and weeds.
When I shut down the site I got angry emails from entitled assholes
who had embedded sound effects in their applications by linking to my
site as if it were an infinite free resource.
This story has been told a million times by people who set up websites
for fun in the 90s and 00s, and pulled them down after realising the
cost (often in time spent reading logs, defending, blocking, banning,
rate-limiting etc)
What is to be done? In the digital world capitalism does not create
value but extracts or appropriates it from creators. To be a digital
creator means paying a constant tax to support those who want to make
money from you.
While cryptocurrency type Web3.0 seems to offer a solution it only
fights fire with fire, wrapping the web in a framework of mutual
extraction and appropriation. Ultimately I think that only plays into
the hands of the extractors who will use it to find ever more
effective ways to thrive as parasites.
I'm looking forward to the NFT bear market where Ethereum moves to Proof of Stake, and people realize that unique digital assets are fun to create, collect, and trade without having to make money on them.
> unique digital assets are fun to create, collect, and trade without having to make money on them.
There's no such thing as a "unique digital asset". Networked computers are good at sharing copies. Any developments against this nature are manufactured, artificial scarcity, for the gains of the controlling party, at the expense of everyone else; and probably in the name of security.
If you like them so much I can roll a die and tell only you which number I got, but that wouldn't affect the world in any way unless we're gambling, nor make it any less "unique" than crypto - it's just more bits/dice.
