@xj9 I'm not under any impression that they're obliged to be nice.

I agree the web is a dumpster fire. Does that mean misinformation from massive conglomerates should go unchallenged? Or that speaking up about their backhanded tactics is futile?

@seasharp

if you think that's a battle you can win.

web is firmly controlled by Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Mozilla has some, but waning influence and are pretty much dependent on Google/Microsoft for funding. w3c likes to pretend they're relevant, but WHAT-WG really runs the web standards game.

Mozilla made a huge rally against Microsoft back in the day, but that was against a stagnant browser from one not very engaged opponent, not a syndicate of cooperating browser vendors with extremely deep pockets.

seems to me that the smart move is to cede to the giants on this front and focus on cultivating a free ecosystem of native applications with strong UX.

war is expensive, and FOSSistan isn't exactly rich/

@xj9

I think perhaps cedeing the giants on this front and confronting their FUDtastic bullshit are not mutually exclusive, and in fact might illustrate why our attentions should be elsewhere as you've said.

I don't purport to know that the majority of internet users even understand that there's an option beyond Chrome, FF, and Edge, so criticism of Edge speaks to a majority I believe.

To put it another way: Pointing out MS's bad behaviour is not an explicit endorsement of the current web.

@xj9 @seasharp Half the planet is yet to get online, and they're the poorer half. When they do get online they're going to be using low power hardware comparable to an ARM7 board.

That's supposedly what the Simon & Speck fight was about.

So the growth area in the next decade is going to be in low performance and low energy systems. At this point Moore's Law is history, so we have what we have in terms of transistor density.

Many of today's browsers and sites are hopelessly bloated. I think there's going to be "disruption" in the web development and browser space as companies/organizations/projects focus on where the new growth is happening.

@bob @xj9 Thus I think we will no doubt see these tactics make their way to the platforms you discuss.

@seasharp @bob

certainly, but if we are trying to win that market we have to be able to compete with expensive FUD campaigns

@xj9 @bob Yeah I can see why investing in winning the browser market is likely to waste cycles better used to embolden the FOSS strategy on the next frontier (Bob's talk of ARMv7 systems).

Is there a way we can criticise and expose these tactics in the current arena with a focus on easily identifying them as they make their way to the new platforms?

@seasharp @bob

one moat i can think of is pushing/building decentralized networks that are difficult for large players to leverage. fedi is a good start, but not exactly a good fit for mobile, partially connected networks (possibly with limited cell data caps).

Google et al have to deploy satellites, hot air balloons, or lay actual fiber over thousands of hectares in the developing world. NDN and roaming mesh networks are an essential part of competing with the internet giants. self-organizing infrastructure powered by low-powered smartphones is much, much cheaper than building out traditional internet infrastructure.

there are research problems there, but if we can solve them we might have a shot at beating the big 4 to the punch by getting people connected while they are spending billions of dollars trying to reach them with their centralized architectures.

@xj9 @seasharp So a possible near future development is someone developing a new type of browser and web framework which is dramatically simplified compared to what we see today, ditching a lot of what today we think of as vital and probably ignoring W3C entirely. Things are going to need to be designed for "offline first" and accommodate large latencies via satellites or multiple hops through mesh nodes.

@bob @xj9 @seasharp I heard this 'Gopher' thing was designed for that use and like always Pleroma is at the cutting edge by supporting it

@Thndr @bob @seasharp

unfortunately, pleroma is in the category of "legacy TCP applications"

fedi is good, but Anonymous Named Data Networking is the future

@Thndr @xj9 @seasharp Gopher was designed for a different era, but something like a modernized version of Gopher might be something which becomes a trend.

A simplified web framework could contain things like commands which implement generic screen layouts, reducing the amount of code and allowing for possible hardware optimization.

@bob @xj9 @seasharp sounds a bit like Scuttlebutt to me

@kawaiipunk @seasharp @xj9 Yes scuttlebutt is a good start, although its main client, Patchwork, could do with some slimming down.

@bob @seasharp @xj9 Admitably it's not designed for privacy if you're connecting to a bunch of random pubs but it does have the right vibe.

It would work super well in a mesh network.

@kawaiipunk @xj9 @seasharp

#freedombone mesh already uses it. https://freedombone.net/mesh.html

@kawaiipunk @seasharp @bob

scuttlebutt is bae tbh

@GqsSW1pLJq5qUbJuDAtm7MwwOhpf+Ur6BfDH0kZKCJc=.ed25519

@ohthehugemanatee @seasharp

The fact that only developers are seeing this currently negates the fact that this is FUD from a company that says they verbatim "<3 Open Source" ?