An example of why I hate the web

[H. S. Teoh]

On Tue, Mar 03, 2020 at 09:04:49PM +0000, Rumbu via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Tuesday, 3 March 2020 at 18:30:44 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> > But there is a fundamentally b0rken principle here, that you no
> > longer own anything, not your data, not your programs, your provider
> > controls everything. You no longer *own* anything, you're merely a
> > "subscriber"
> 
> That's because usually, it's the company/university/third party that
> provides you these services. From the other side of the fence I am
> happy that I can set a ridiculous retention period making your
> "delete" action completely useless. I can even let you press
> Shift-Delete if that makes you feel good.

And that's why I run my own services myself. :-P


> I have seen too many times people lie and pretend to be victim of
> things that never happened. Living in an era where nearly everything
> has a written e-mail/conversation behind it, it's very simple to
> counter any misbehaviour of users.

Most people are totally clueless and lack common sense when it comes to
posting things online.  They don't understand that old saying, that once
it's online, you will never, ever, be able to delete it.  *Somebody*,
*somewhere*, likely already has a copy of it archived somewhere, and --
even though realistically speaking it's rare -- one day might come back
to bite you when you least expect it.  If you're not comfortable with
information XYZ being essentially public and read by people you don't
know, don't post it online in the first place!!


> For personal use, you can set up in your basement your e-mail server
> in minutes, but as long as you use a resource payed and maintained by
> a third party, I don't find any abuse if that third party manages that
> resource how suits it best.

I don't call it abuse.  I call it the provider empowering itself vs.
empowering the user.  If you signed up for the service and signed the
contract, then it's your own responsibility for the consequences. I
choose not to sign up for the service if it does not empower me.


> The same about people complaining about Facebook selling your data. I
> survived without a Facebook account and I'm in my 40-ies.

Me too. :-P  I almost signed up for Facebook once, well actually, twice;
the first time I read the privacy policy and went, Nope.  The second
time I thought, what's the harm if I never post private information and
just use fake personal details to open an account? -- but then they
require a real phone number.  I was not about to go get a throwaway
phone number just to be able to get a lousy Facebook account, so I said,
Nope.  And never looked back.

The kind of stuff people post on FB is seriously scary.  Personal
details, detailed itineraries of upcoming vacation trips (hello, Mr.
Robber, would you like to rob my house this weekend?), with absolutely
no sense whatsoever that this is all out there for people -- *anyone* --
to read.  And of course, Big Brother FB collecting information about you
in the background and doing who-knows-what with that information.

I mean, I'm not crazy paranoid, there's some info about myself that I
honestly couldn't care less if everyone knows about it.  But I'd rather
be the one deciding what that info is, rather than posting *everything*
online for who knows what kind of online weirdo to read (and act on).


> Subscription is an option. You can setup your gig anytime in your nice
> data room like in old days or you can find something between, e.g. a
> private cloud. But as long as you pay 10 or 0 bucks on a fully fledged
> server with 99% uptime, you must give something in return. Your
> privacy, your ownership or your pinky sometimes :) Freedom and
> independence are not for free.
[...]

I don't mind paying for a service where the provider lets me control my
data and my services.  I don't bother paying for services where they
dictate what I can use, how I should use it, and when I can access it.

It's like using an open source OS vs. a closed source one.  I choose to
use an OS that lets me configure how it works, and make changes if/when
I want to (even if generally I stay with the defaults), rather than an
OS where the hood is welded shut, and I have no control over how it
works, and even where a remote entity decides when and how to upgrade
it.  No thanks, I prefer to update when *I* choose to, and *know* what
the heck I'm getting into before installing some dubious "patch" that
could suddenly break the way I currently work (*cough*Windows
10*ahem*forced upgrade*cough*).

Some services offer a high degree of customization, and I'm OK with
that.  But if I can't configure it to work the way I want, if there are
artificial barriers introduced for external, unrelated reasons where
there's no *technical* reason why something shouldn't be allowed, then
seriously it's just not worth my time and money. I'll take my business
elsewhere, thank you very much.


T

-- 
Дерево держится корнями, а человек - друзьями.