this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
1730 points (98.6% liked)

Comic Strips

12569 readers
4462 users here now

Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

The rules are simple:

Web of links

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] sxan@midwest.social 15 points 3 weeks ago (11 children)

The web, "as intended," worked for several years with utterly no ad content. And when ads did start coming along, they were largely innocuous; little things in side bars, not obnoxious full-page videos that are rarely dismissible.

Anyone who tries to sell you on the idea that the web was designed for commerce or as a way to distribute anything other than information is a lying fucker.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

Is your point that technology should never be used for anything other than what it was originally designed for? If that's the case then please stop using TCP/IP for anything other than advancing US military weapons research.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

My point was that the comment I was replying to implied that the web was created so that people could monetize content. That was not the reason why the web was created.

If I create a whingdoodle that provides people with free electricity, and you find a way to murder cities with it, then you can't claim it's "functioning as intended." I didn't intend for it to do that; you found a way to pervert it. Now, Billy found a way to prevent you from murdering him with your weaponized wingdoodle, and you argue that he shouldn't, because the wingdoodle is "functioning as intended." I'm calling bullshit on that. That was my point.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

There's http response code 402 (payment required) which comes before even 404 (page not found). Indicates to me that people were thinking about using the web for commerce even before they thought about people putting in a wrong URL.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 3 weeks ago

Like I said, the best resource for this is Tim Berners-Lee, the man who literally invented the WWW.

Although, I was in college when he did it, and I have a pretty clear memory of those early years. Before JavaScript; before Java; before https. You know, https, the thing that enables secure data transfer like credit card information? Which was introduced 11 years after http was released and being used?

No. I can't say what all Tim foresaw, but ecommerce and monetization of the web was not at the forefront of his intentions. Just look at what he's written about it himself. Or, email him; he's still alive.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)