Big Tech Is Winning the Web
on a train back to Cracow
This time the train is much more modern.
In the meantime, Hacker News pointed me to an article by Chris Siebenmann:
If you can’t reach us because of something in your ISP, we have a problem; if you can’t reach GMail for the same reason, your ISP has a problem.
I am also afraid of how much big tech has become the de facto standard body for the internet. Let’s face it: whatever Google does, anyone will have to go along with it. Netflix and YouTube already broke any chance for a new modern rendering engine by mobbing for the introduction of DRM. We’ve already seen YT breaking Firefox by ignoring standards and going all-in with Chrome.
We need a standardizing body that is entirely not backed by any existing player or government. W3 was like that, but nowadays, they are nothing but a husk of their former self. Firefox foundation no longer focuses on the browser but on completely random initiatives.
We are this close to losing the web. As end-users, we can do very little. Not using Chrome is a great start. Some of us working in the tech environment have a moral obligation always to convince people of power for open standards. And most importantly, if you publish on the web, you should have a webpage. Not a FB profile, but an actual, classic, good website. And since we’re on the subject, Indieweb is a very cool initiative.