The Public Interest Internet (opens in new tab)

As someone working in this space, I think standards and standard governance are important, but just as important are the economics. Right now, tech is largely dominated by platforms designed to extract resources in various ways, and to redistribute those resources to investors. To create a public interest internet, we will have to find a dwindling sense of collective and individual responsibility to our collective interests, and that includes recognising the very real and pressing economic implications of technofeudalism. That then means putting resources into digital public infrastructure, through pressure on our collectively held assets, such as pension funds and government procurement.

> So, say you want to create a new web standard...

This and the following image have a misguided understanding of the market. We know how this situation plays out because we ran exactly that experiment in the 2000s with Firefox and IE6. Those market share numbers are contingent on Google doing the best possible job as curators insofar as the userbase can tell.

If there are browser features that users want (like tabs) or web standards that enable Cool New Stuff (like modern JS) then users will go out of their way to install browsers that support them. Firefox got all the way to around 20-30% of the market before MS's control of the web collapsed and we entered the current era.

The "problem" that competitors of Google face is that Google is a rather competent steward of web standards. Their browser engine is hard to compete with because it is very good, their web standards are hard to compete with because they are largely appropriate.

Although I stand by a prediction I have that the next wave will be when a Brave-like model takes hold and the price of browsing the web drops from free to negative. With crypto we are surely getting to spitting distance of advertisers paying users directly to look at ads instead of paying Google to organise the web such that users look at ads.

I would much prefer the state compete with market actors, not commandeer their operations.

The state has significant advantages when competing against private market actors because it can sustainably fund public goods, due to the fact that its vast tax collection apparatus can capture a much higher proportion of the value generated by public goods than private actors can.

An adequately funded public good has several advantages over private goods:

* Wide public buy-in: Due to the absence of barriers to contribution, such as secret code or restrictive licensing requirements for modifications.

* Generally favorable public perceptions: Public goods often enjoy more trust and support.

If the state provides a compelling option, it can naturally attract users, and without having to impose mandates on existing market options.

This is greatly preferrable to the regulatory approach, which can have unintended consequences that slow innovation and reduce market options. For example, if regulations impose heavy compliance burdens on tech companies, they would divert resources to legal and administrative expenses, leading to less resources for R&D.

Regulatory regimentation to ostensibly achieve some public policy goal, can also prevent companies from experimenting with new ideas and approaches, which ultimately slows the industry's rate of progress.

So by having the state compete rather than regulate coercively, we get the benefits of market-driven innovation while also testing the potential of public goods to provide superior value than what market-provisioned goods can.

Such state-funded public options can also be used to non-coercively bolster open standards, by giving then the critical mass of adoption needed to become market standards.

I see some discussions about browsers. I think they are not that relevant for the current state of the Internet. I use ff, and 99% of the web looks, and behaves correctly.

imho search engines affect page contents, and 'style' of the web. They define what is visible, and what is not, what is acceptable, and what is not. According to the chart Google controls 91% of that pie.

I do feel that most of what is wrong with the Internet is because of ads. The next thing is that corporations and governments use it to wield, exert power. The next thing is that contemporary search fails spectacularly at "discovery". When have you found 'a new blog' via google search? When did you find a new 'music band' using google search? When did you found fun web radio station? Google is answer machine. It is not a good place to find new things. It is not a good place to find retro things.

As a thought example lets think that alternative is possible. Let's say someone creates "a new search" that is successful, and makes Internet fun again. The corporations can sniff the trends and will move their presence to that space. Governments will also move there. They will make the pressure again on the "new successful search engine" to bend it to their rule. They will force their willpower eventually. They will perform enshittification again.

One way to break this trend is to have Internet federated, but this road is not funded enough. Why would anybody invest in hosting parts of the Internet? I was thinking about government funding for such projects, but I would be really surprised if that road resulted in anything good.

That is why I created an offline cache of the Internet [1]. I do not need to host it, yet anybody can use it. I can easily find "amiga" related domains, and start my search using just this.

Do not provide web apps. Provide data. Provide files. Provide something that works off-line. "File over app".

[1] https://github.com/rumca-js/Internet-Places-Database

Allow me to open with a wildly speculative question: What if the internet were public interest technology? I mean "internet" the way most people understand it, which is to say our whole digital sphere, and by "public interest" I don't mean tinkering at the margins to reduce harm from some bad actors or painting some glossy ethics principles atop a pile of exploitative rent-seeking — I mean through and through, warts and all, an internet that works in support of a credible, pragmatic definition of the common good.

Summary: Someone's gotta pay for the Ramen.

A good start would be to demand that internet infrastructure operators do just that - and nothing more.

Internet providers do just that one job: Routing IP. No peeking into my packages please.

Strengthening and regulating the underlying world-wide infrastructure: undersea cables, transcontinental fiber networks - with oversight that prevents any org (public or private) from intercepting traffic would go a long way to protect the Public Interest.

Alas, a pipe dream.

In my opinion the first step in a more decentralized internet, or at least a big part in being able to move in that direction would be a system for a global easy system for (micro)payments. That is preferably modelled like cash. (more anonymous). and ubiquitous, they can also be used in the real world.

It would be nice for me, if someone reads an article I wrote and they give me ¤0.01 ¤0.001 or something. (Given that a lot of countries, people make vastly less money than others what constitutes a "micro"payment.

That would of course mean that transactions were either utterly inexpensive or free.

We would have a ubiquitous, distributed, untraceable", distributed means of conducting international transactions.

I think we have all the technical issues solved.

but

No Western government will ever allow it. (Nor most other governments). Since it would rob them of a lot of power, and we would hear: "Terrorism, child pornography, bypass economic sanctions, election manipulation, disinformation" etc etc. The usual stuff.

(Even though all of that is going on already....