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111 comments

  • I think the issue is that these platforms are motivated by advertisers. I can build a Reddit clone in a weekend and have it be ad-free. It's not expensive to host text + urls - which was how old.reddit.com used to operate. It's basically a few dollars a month or I could host it out of my house for the cost of electricity (and security). And, without advertisers, I don't really care what I host so long as it doesn't directly contributing to harming others.

    The main issues are:

    • No one wants to join a platform devoid of content
    • Once you reach a large enough platform that people want to join, it might require revenue streams to afford the scale
    • It's hard for people to even find platforms (Google will direct you to the top 5: Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok)

    The modern infrastructure hasn't changed. It's still HTTP and servers. The problem is internet culture. We used to use the internet as an extension of our community. We could share links, forums, etc. in person (bizarre, I know). But now the internet is our entire community. And there is little drive to participate in niche communities. People like to be heard and to engage quickly on the internet which requires a large-ish platform (Lemmy is a good example of this).

    • No it's really payment processors.

      There have been multiple successful ad-free websites in the past. But they still need revenue to function. Revenue their users happily pay.

      But then Visa or PayPal or whoever is handling the transactions starts to pay attention and then all the sudden there's new rules in place or else they hike fees or just stop processing payments altogether.

      And on the Internet, there is no true alternative methods of payment (hint: any viable methods are quickly suppressed by those same payment processors).

      So the only way any website gets big is left to the whims of advertisers or payment processors (usually both).

      I have no idea why we as a people are somehow fine with private companies having a complete stranglehold on all significant online business. Why we've allowed the government to privatize digital transactions, subject to very little rights or protections. It's allowing private corporations to massively suppress free speech, commerce, and social gatherings in the digital sphere.

      Honestly our supposed freedoms are more and more limited these days because they only apply to public spaces, but there's been a continual erosion of 'public'. Where is the modern town square? If the only place you can practice your 'rights' is almost nowhere, do you really have those rights at all?

      The government should be mandating that 'digital infrastructure' (ISPs, data centers, payment processors, etc) are neutral and can't be utilized to bully others out of business. That their privileged position also comes with extra responsibilities and restrictions so you don't have the digital equivalent of cutting off water to an abortion clinic because the water utility is pro-life.

      • Probably ~15 years ago I knew a guy who used to help run a large local forum, one day without warning they got cut off entirely by Google because they decided some of their content wasn't suitable to run ads against, so that was it the entire site got blocked.

        Ended up having to break the site into 2 separate domains, one advertiser friendly, and one they wouldn't touch.

      • I agree with most of what you said but I feel like we are talking past each other regarding the whole payment processor piece. How do payment processors impact what ads YouTube plays before a video?

111 comments