this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 276 points 1 year ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 218 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (51 children)

I hope **chrome **fails terribly. Just like Internet Explorer(IE). Firefox all the way

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Except when it doesn't. That saying never made sense (far more species have gone extinct than exist today) and it doesn't apply here.

Piracy will continue, obviously, but what we're seeing here is the creation of an internet we can't even fathom yet. This is just where it starts.

Also consider how much more difficult it will be for the average person to participate in piracy. Remember a few months back when Microsoft floated they were basically looking to lock down windows? No unsigned apps, no win32, etc. People will get around that, of course, but fewer people will. Especially if they continue with this trend towards stripping options and de-admin-ing all users unless they pay for an enterprise license.

Then there's the dangerous trend toward encryption being broken by regulation and possibly even VPNs being rendered useless for anyone but businesses. There goes secure torrenting.

The trends don't look good, across the board. We can't just sit here and hope it all works out and the loopholes are found, like it always has before.

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[–] [email protected] 228 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (22 children)

And then the plan to force everyone to abandon Firefox whether they like it or not.

  1. Implement the misfeatures.
  2. Movie and music websites will be the first to announce requiring DRM to be able to watch movies or listen to tunes.
  3. The banks will be next. "For your safety, you must use an Official Approved Browser™ to be allowed access to your money!"
  4. Then ecommerce sites. "You must have DRM enabled to be allowed to buy anything."
  5. Then comes the social media sites. For your safety, of course...

At that point, the userbase of anything that's not Chrome or not DRM'd to death will be so eroded that virtually everyone else will abandon Firefox support, DRM will get enabled by default. Also, comes the lobbyists to Congress demanding changes to the DMCA to throw users in prison who dare to try to crack the DRM to block ads. "Ad-blocking is stealing!"

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[–] [email protected] 142 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Google is such a bad company. People should discontinue use of all their software and at the very least stop using chrome or chromium. They’ve got the internet by the balls.

[–] [email protected] 86 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I still remember old days, when most coders used to praise google. Their services were amazing and I think one of their old principle was >"Develop good products first, think about monetisation later"

[–] [email protected] 151 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 139 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (24 children)

The year is 2023, every single major tech companies are racing each other to become Public Enemy No. 1. And the only Hero we have is the EU, will it be able to save the day?

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[–] [email protected] 135 points 1 year ago

We warned you about Chrome. We told you bro.

[–] [email protected] 114 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Google and Chrome really need to be broken up. Maybe people should start writing (physical) letters to the FTC asking to review Google's recent actions as monopolistic behavior.

It wouldn't be the first time. But showing the interest is the best way to get the ball rolling that we can do.

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[–] [email protected] 108 points 1 year ago (9 children)

"Google engineers want..."

No. Google executives want this to happen. Google's CEO wants this to happen.

They want to change the internet and remove any little bit of freedom for their own corporate profits.

Fuck "do no evil" Google.

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[–] [email protected] 105 points 1 year ago

The internet is unusable without adblockers.

[–] [email protected] 96 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I’ve tried internet without adblock and it’s almost unusable.

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[–] [email protected] 94 points 1 year ago (17 children)

We waste intelligent minds on this rubbish when we are facing an existential crisis in climate change.

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[–] [email protected] 94 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Use Firefox.

Support Firefox.

Using alternative Chromium based browsers is not it.

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Alright, today is oficially the day I switch to Firefox

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 1 year ago (29 children)

Why's everyone blaming the engineers lol, pretty sure they're just doing what they're told right?

[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Exactly, headline should be more like "Google executives want Google engineers to make ad-blocking (near) impossible"

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. And it's a death knell of the internet as we know it. It won't be today or tomorrow, but slowly, over the next few years, expect surface level internet services to be extremely user unfriendly. I expect normies to just accept their fate and pay access fees to literally every website and service they use, while more tech savvy or explorative people might find their way to federated spaces or Usenet, etc.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Then don't let Chrome be a super majority of users.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

The silver lining here might also be that the internet that we knew and loved 25 years ago might actually reappear. The 'other' stuff would just become background noise to the ones 'in the know'.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 1 year ago (22 children)
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[–] [email protected] 74 points 1 year ago (1 children)

News headline, October 2078

Google finds users are covering their ears and closing their eyes; releases nanobots to force eyes open and lock hands behind back.

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Ad pushing is only part of the problem… These tokens will kill the #InternetArchive Wayback machine. It’s anti-library tech.

Anti-bot tech is inherently anti-human.

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 year ago (16 children)

I find it disturbing that there are people out there who spend much of their time thinking about new ways to get people to see adverts. Surely it falls under the "bullshit jobs" category that David Graeber once wrote about.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago

It's not just that there are people thinking about it, it's that this is what our brightest minds in our society are incentivized to think about.

There is a joke in tech circles - if you are smart enough you eventually end up in ad tech. It's really unhealthy for our society.

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

I don't know if it's the Google engineers that "want" to do this

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And another question: did someone already lay out a roadmap to google's collapse?

Right now we're going through a financial crisis, big tech needs to start making proper money so they try to squeeze the users. Google hopes to "drm the internet" to maximise ad revenue. Let's assume they succeed. 3 years from now the dystopia of dead adblockers is live, google and other leeches make bank off ads.

But there's no more adblockers and no more ad revenue left to squeeze out (because every internet user is already chained to a screen and force fed ads within ads). And shareholders demand increase in profits. What do they do then? Is there any hint of a long-term strategy? How long before the maximum theoretical ad revenue is reached and plateaus? Then COVID29 or something comes, fed raises rastes again and...?

[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (5 children)

You’re describing the inherent limitations of capitalism. Our entire economy is predicated on infinite growth, which doesn’t exist and isn’t possible. What you describe is the eventual collapse of not just organizations, but of the US as a whole.

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Use Firefox.

Even the Android version lets you install uBlock Origin.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 year ago (24 children)

Google controls way too much. People need to stop using their products. Many people complaining right now are still using Google stuff. If everyone concerned stop using Google stuff, that would cause them to reconsider very quickly.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There are no laws stating that we have to watch or see ads, so forcing us to watch them feels like a huge overstep. Companies shouldn't be able to have this much control over a public service.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago (5 children)

It isn't Google Engineers wanting to do it. It's Google engineers being told to do it.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (10 children)

I'm not even joking, shit like this is bringing back my depression.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is why I recently switched back to Firefox.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Google engineers want me to stop using anything from google

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Will use firefox until it gets broken into pieces. I would rather stop using the internet other than for necessary situations.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Even if they do that, some people will just create illegal website mirrors that remove ads.

On reddit, people already copy paste articles when there's a paywall. I can totally envision that thing to be more common.

I am not fucking kidding, I will stop using websites if I cannot block ads. This is non negotiable. I don't care about your business model, I have zero money to give you. I tried the official reddit app, and uninstalled within a week.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

When will they understand, if I'm introduced to your product through an advertisement, I do not want to buy it. I will make a point not to. Do not annoy me. If your product is good enough, it will be bought.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago

It was not hilarious when MS tried to control stuff like this with IE.

This is a boring fight, and it is why tech companies need a broken up and a kick in the profits/pants.

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