Who Will Win Control of the Web?

Barence writes "Control of the web is up for grabs. Each of the big three computing companies – Microsoft, Apple and Google – has its own radically different vision to promote, as does the world's biggest creative software company, Adobe. And HTML itself is changing, too. This article examines the case for each of the contenders in the war of the web and, with the help of industry experts, assesses which – if any – is most likely to emerge as victor."

Comments

How do we make sure?

[countertrolling]

How do we make sure that nobody "controls" the web?

Re:How do we make sure?

[ArcherB]

How do we make sure that nobody "controls" the web?

Looks to me that the web is falling under the control of DHS. We all know how much a threat bit-torrent search engines are to national security.

If this would have happened three years ago, Slash would have posted this article three times with 750 comments each talking about how Bush is a tyrant trying to seize and solidify power. Now in 2010, not a peep.

Re:How do we make sure?

[girlintraining]

How do we make sure that nobody "controls" the web?

Make it unprofitable.

Re:How do we make sure?

[countertrolling]

That's politics for ya.

Re:How do we make sure?

[beakerMeep]

Actually, Slashdot posted it yesterday: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/11/26/1450257/US-Government-Seizes-Torrent-Search-Engine-Domain
 
The same day as your link.

Slashdot may have political bias, but when it comes to tech, no party or ideology gets off the hook.

I'd sooner suspect your bias, for linking to TheHill, than Slashdot's.

Re:How do we make sure?

[hey]

Good idea!
(really)

Re:How do we make sure?

[gilesjuk]

We needed a fundamental human right that says access to public information on the web should be accessible by anyone using any device.

As for Flash and Silverlight, they hinder development of the web by providing an easy way to do things or a way to do things not possible by DHTML/Javascript.

Re:How do we make sure?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You mean expressing my anger online hasn't permanently fixed the problem? This is an outrage!

Re:How do we make sure?

[poetmatt]

you mean the debunked scenario in the first comment?

slashdot may have political bias, but that doesn't mean people pay attention to when things are a hoax.

Re:How do we make sure?

[Andy Smith]

The web will continue to be controlled by the same people that have always controlled it -- us, the users. If a minority interest such as a company or government manages to exert unwanted influence on the web, whether that be a proprietary standard or unpopular laws, then the greater community will simply migrate the web to a new form.

Re:How do we make sure?

[Mitchell314]

How do we make sure that nobody "controls" the web?

Make it unprofitable.

So . . . you want the government to manage it? :D

Re:How do we make sure?

[FudRucker]

make the intertubes like a public street or flea market where anyone can set up shop or make their opinion known, I do not want any one entity to dominate and control the internet, it needs to be free and neutral and available for anybody.

Re:How do we make sure?

[blahplusplus]

"Slashdot may have political bias"

Speaking about political bias, peoples understanding of what reason is and how it functions is seriously incorrect on all sides.

Everyone on slashdot should see the following:

Clip from important part:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

Te whole thing on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOdJMuCreDA

Re:How do we make sure?

[c1ay]

Continue supporting open source solutions. As long as Unix/Linux OSes remain the dominant systems and Apache the dominant server then proprietary solutions will never win. The attempt of proprietary vendors to win is exactly what drives the community to fork and maintain open source. In the same way that BSD gave birth to FreeBSD, Open Office gave birth to Libre Office. I suspect Oracle will eventually force MySQL to fork in order to remain open but it has the momentum now to remain the dominant web DB. Freedom will prevail and that is what will make sure no one entity controls the web.

Re:How do we make sure?

[mellon]

Um. The title is absurd. You don't "control the web" by adopting open standards. None of these three is "controlling the web." If you want to look for someone controlling the web, look at all the legislation going around allowing governments to seize domain names, and treat traffic differently based on its source, and shut down peoples' access to the web based on mere allegations. That's "controlling the web."

Re:How do we make sure?

[ArcherB]

Actually, Slashdot posted it yesterday: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/11/26/1450257/US-Government-Seizes-Torrent-Search-Engine-Domain

The same day as your link.

Slashdot may have political bias, but when it comes to tech, no party or ideology gets off the hook.

I'd sooner suspect your bias, for linking to TheHill, than Slashdot's.

Thanx. That one flew under my radar. Still, it mentions only one site that was taken over. THIS site contains an update that lists many more that have been taken over. And, NO, it's not TheHill.com.

But back to my original point. Shouldn't there be comparisons to Nazi book burnings or something? I know we would have seen that comparison made three years ago. I wonder what has changed since then.

Re:How do we make sure?

[girlintraining]

So . . . you want the government to manage it? :D

If you remember your history, originally they did. None of this non-sense was happening until private businesses moved in and demanded government protection for their profit margins.

Re:How do we make sure?

[ckedge]

I think that says more about how many people are reading slashdot. Most of the stories here now have a paltry handful of comments, and what comments there are ... are trollish spew in nature. Very very few intelligent discussions here. This is the first time I've posted a comment here in ... a LONG time.

I think reddit has finally killed slashdot.

Re:How do we make sure?

[jc42]

How do we make sure that nobody "controls" the web?

Make it unprofitable.

So . . . you want the government to manage it? :D

Well, the US government did fund about 99% of its development, mainly through (D)ARPA, the (Defense) Advanced Research Projects Agency. That seems to have worked pretty well. Furthermore, ARPA left most of the development to the academic community, which does a fairly good job of "unprofitable". They were interested in capability, not profits. The military took what they considered useful from what the academics developed, used it to build their own Internet with very few connections to the academic Internet, and left the academics to continue to play with their big, useful toy.

OTOH, since the Internet was commercialized, we see a lot of what we're talking about here: The primary interest of the for-profit world is maximizing their income from the Internet, while minimizing development and support costs. This is why, for example, it has taken so long to get wireless Internet. It has been built by the phone companies, whose interests lie in creating exclusive "walled gardens", in which they have control over what software you are allowed to run, because they want you to pay for every little thing (even when its authors are giving it out free). They also seriously limit independent developers, because they want you to pay the phone companies for the software, not the developers. (Sorta like how the music industry has so successfully claimed 99% of the income, given a small part to the top "artists", and given the rest nothing.)

If history is any guide, we should conclude that strict government control and management of the Internet is the right way to go, at least in countries where the government (or the military ;-) has the good sense to continue to view it as an academic playground. And, as ARPA did during the early development, we should restrict the corporate world to the role of suppliers of the components, with no control of what we do with the network.

The growing talk of corporate monopolies running big chunks of the Internet should be a serious warning to all of us. To see why, look at the phone system back when in the US and many other countries, you could only attach hardware purchased or leased from the phone companies to your phone line. For a century, this produced glacially-slow development. Then, in the US and a few other countries, the government changed the rules, and gave customers permission to attach "foreign" gadgets (that met minimum interface requirements) to their phone lines. Within only a few years, there was an explosion of new capabilities. This is what you'd expect when you enable competition, of course. But you can't have competition and development if your connection is controlled by a monopoly that's allowed to control how you can use their system. In the US, this is pretty much the situation with wireless phones right now, and as a result, the wireless Internet is seriously crippled here.

Phrases like "net neutrality" and "control of the Web" should be warnings to all of us that the corporate world is trying to take control and limit our use of the Internet to only what we've explicitly paid them for. Look at the anti-competitive ways that Apple's App Store imposes. Ask yourself whether you want Apple or any of the other big players to impose rules like that on all the independent software developers out there. Ask yourself whether you want one big "winner" to control the Internet like AT&T did the phone system for a century, and block almost all further progress.

This is a case where the classical "incompetence" of the government has worked to our advantage. Maybe we should keep it that way. Without it, we'd never have had the Internet. We'd only have a flock of small, vendor-specific networks. You'd only be able to communicate with people and sites approved of by your

Re:How do we make sure?

[NeutronCowboy]

Shouldn't there be comparisons to Nazi book burnings or something? I know we would have seen that comparison made three years ago. I wonder what has changed since then.

Ah, the wonders of selection bias. Not to mention the standard confusion of Slashdot with a hive mind.

Re:How do we make sure?

[trapnest]

You realize this isn't the issue at hand at all, right? Of course you do, you just wanted to make sure you posted your propaganda.

Re:How do we make sure?

[salesgeek]

Some people have a problem with form and function. If something works, but does not work as they would like, they get a tad grumpy.

Re:How do we make sure?

[slysithesuperspy]

Maybe I'm a cynic but relying entirely on other peoples' goodwill doesn't seem to me like the best idea.

Re:How do we make sure?

[paiute]

Look at the anti-competitive ways that Apple's App Store imposes.

I don't get it. Apple has rules for what you can sell in their store. Big deal. So does Walmart. So does Target. So does Home Depot. I don't have to shop at those stores if I don't want to.

Re:How do we make sure?

[Mystra_x64]

You seem to make W3C a victim here. It's not. Unless you count it's own inability to go forward.

HTML 5 is perfectly fine. // This line has exactly the same number of facts as yours BTW. That is 0.

It's not clear to me what's so backwards and messy either. While I like XHTML myself XML serialization is till there with HTML 5. As for XHTML 2... it got nowhere. Blame W3C.

Re:How do we make sure?

[Dun Malg]

I think reddit has finally killed slashdot.

Pretty much. I jumped ship to Reddit months ago. Between the perpetual obnoxification of the Slashdot interface, the stupidification of the Slashdot "editors" and their inscrutable logic in approving idiotic stories for the front page, and the hordes of trollish mundanes that have watered down the geek quotient, I hardly bother to check Slashdot anymore. Back when it was CmdrTaco posting cool dork/nerd shit he found on the internet it was pretty fun, but now... meh.

Re:How do we make sure?

[countertrolling]

I wonder what has changed since then.

Nothing really. The nazi thing is passe for the time being. It's all Mussolini now. Evidently, according to the playbook, the republicans are nazis, and the dems are fascists, is how each side describes the other. And both share in each other's conspiracy theories. I say they'll be whatever we want them to be. So if we want nazis and fascists, that is what we will get. But all these guys are wannabes. They're afraid of the camera. So now they have to find more innovative ways to provoke us into killing each other off, and make it look like an accident.

Re:How do we make sure?

[countertrolling]

...look at all the legislation going around allowing governments to seize...

It doesn't make me feel any better that my service provider can do the same thing. And these three would love to have that power also. Banishing people from their forums, and youtubes, and app stores isn't enough. They want you off the net! Only one law is needed, "Your access shall not be denied, or restricted (outside your contracted bandwidth) in any manner if your bill is paid."

Re:How do we make sure?

[BZ]

> You don't "control the web" by adopting open standards.

No, but you do control it by making possibly-unilateral changes to the way the web works and getting them adopted as "open standards" (which is a pretty low bar, actually; witness a number of the W3C standards).

Re:How do we make sure?

[BitZtream]

I've spent all these years fighting spam ... now you're telling me to welcome it in order to win?

Thats a really silly statement, don't you think?

Re:How do we make sure?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a hard time imagining that most people, who give politics serious thought, would run on that warped analysis of decision making.

All of my left leaning friends believe that reason is as defined in the video: concious, logical, unemossional, etc.
However, they also understand that a lot of people make quick decisions by relying on unconcious feelings. They understand the concepts of confirmation bias and social conditioning. They understand the fundamentals of human learning.

Let me repeat:
All of my friends understand how beliefs are formed, but they still believe that reason can prevail through concious, universal, logical, unemossional, etc means. And in fact, if you think deeply about a subject, you are bound to come to this ideal level of reason.

Re:How do we make sure?

[Damek]

None of this non-sense was happening until private businesses moved in and demanded government protection for their profit margins.

You just covered the history of the rise of the state in one sentence.

Re:How do we make sure?

[paiute]

I don't get it. Apple has rules for what you can sell in their store. Big deal. So does Walmart. So does Target. So does Home Depot. I don't have to shop at those stores if I don't want to.

Do you really need it explained to you that you don't have the option of buying an app elsewhere if Apple doesn't put it in their store?

If you can't get the tools you need at Home Depot, you're free to try Walmart. What if Home Depot said "you can sell your tools here, our way, or not at all." That's why it's anti-competitive.

Do you get it now?

No, still not clear. Lowe's sells a line of tools which can be found only at Lowe's. I can find equivalent tools at Home Depot. Different name, same tool. Blue hammer, orange hammer.

Re:How do we make sure?

[blahplusplus]

"I have a hard time imagining that most people, who give politics serious thought, would run on that warped analysis of decision making."

Believe it, they do.

Re:How do we make sure?

[Kit Kat100]

Get rid of the web entirely OR get rid of everyone on earth

Telcos

[cosm]

He who lays the pipes.

Re:Telcos

[Culture20]

He who lays the pipes.

The same answer to "who will pass on their genetic traits?"

Re:Telcos

[turkeyfish]

Put down that pipe and save the tubes.

Answer

[girlintraining]

Who Will Win Control of the Web?

You and I, silly people. Why are we deluding ourselves into believing only massive multinational companies can control the web, or that the government can control the internet, etc.? They are granted power because we give it to them.

If each of you here went over to 10 people's homes and set them up on something like Tor, and showed them how to protect their privacy and avoid malware and advertisement, executives everywhere would be protesting in front of Congress to stop those goddamned citizens from ruining their perfectly profitable business built on exploiting them. That, people, is power. And it is yours, not theirs.

Re:Answer

[Baseclass]

I agree. Unfortunately javascript, Flash, Silverlight, etc... can easily be leveraged to compromise your anonymity via Tor. So unless you,re content viewing HTML only content, Tor is all but worthless.

Re:Answer

[Cwix]

If each of you here went over to 10 people's homes and set them up on something like Tor, and showed them how to protect their privacy and avoid malware and advertisement, executives everywhere would be protesting in front of Congress to stop those goddamned citizens from ruining their perfectly profitable business built on exploiting them.

Yep and then when facebook doesn't work, or youtube is too slow. They will immediately stop everything they were just taught.

Tor is slow. Most people are too lazy to use ad-block or no-script.. that and it makes their web pages not work. Ive had people use my computer to go online real quick and the second facebook doesn't load.. "whats wrong with your computer?"

You are totally underestimating the power of stupid/lazy people.

Re:Answer

[Amorymeltzer]

That's a big if, though. The power structure of the world has and will always be a pyramid, and those on the bottom have always had the strength and numbers to overthrow those above it, yet a look at the past 20 years in Myanmar/Burma and Argentina are enough to show you that people still, after thousands of years, aren't always quick to do it. Something like the Magna Carta only happens so often, but when it does it's glorious. The real power in that document wasn't the power of the peasants or even the nobles to hold the monarchy accountable - after all, we've always had pitchforks - it was the establishment of an early set of bureaucracy. Companies follow rules for profit, the easiest way to win is just to play their game. Net neutrality is a good example of that - use an established bureaucracy against them. It's much easier to effect change as a small group of vocal lobbyists than a massive uprising. The average citizen wants their coffee and paper, to watch the game, and for the kids to behave. A technowhatsit spat over standards is about as boring as John Kerry's stump speech (that joke is six years old already).

Re:Answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately javascript, Flash, Silverlight, etc... can easily be leveraged to compromise your anonymity via Tor.

Oh noes! Someone might find out that my real IP address is 192.168.1.100!

Re:Answer

[girlintraining]

You know, people are always reluctant for me to touch their computers and install privacy-enhancing software, until I show them how much faster their computer runs without malware, spyware, and pre-installed garbage. After I strip away all the advertisements they see on the web, they're utterly delighted. They want to buy me dinner, or hug me until I choke. They go from skeptics to supporters in a matter of minutes. And then I explain to them how I did it, and ask them to show their friends.

People come to me all the time now asking for the same services: How do I turn off advertisements on my internet? How to I get rid of all these popups trying to sell me crap? And increasingly, people are asking me how they can browse without the government knowing what they are looking at. See, people do read all this crap on CNN; They just feel powerless to do anything about it.

But once they have a community resource willing to show them, suddenly you've got the most unlikeliest of people knocking at your door. Traditional arguments about power and government hold little weight when I can show people how to push a button and make all the bullsh*t go away. No more tracking. No more advertisements. Bamf. Gone. All of it. They're free to use the public resource that is the internet with a peace of mind and just a smidgeon of anonymity and privacy.

And they do. Oh how they do.

Re:Answer

[coryking]

Hey, that's my IP address too you jerk!

Re:Answer

[reboot246]

Yeah, I used to do that for people, too. Then, after noticing that a few months later I'd have to go back and do it again because of their stupidity, I quit.

Most people will keep on doing the same things that got them in the mess to begin with, and my time is too precious to fight against that kind of stupidity.

Re:Answer

[Arancaytar]

If each of you here went over to 10 people's homes

Wait... do you mean, like, go outside?

Re:Answer

[cinnamon colbert]

This shows a profound lack of understanding of how large corporations try to control markets.
The first thing you have to understand is that almost all large companies strive as hard as they can to remove the market from consideration - this is called "marketing" (as with most corp speak, it is newspeak, the opposite of what is intended). The goal of marketing is to make you buy stuff on silly things, like the label, rather then on what you need or what is best cost/price/function.
The second thing is that "the market" is all powerful and can fight marketing; rather it is a continual struggle; the maturity of hte market and the mumber of dominant players has a role.
IT is still possible for a faceook to spring up, but the web is so young - not even ateenager.
as the web matures and barriers to entrance become higher, power will shift away from us.
For instance, look at search engines: from what I understand, to start a new search enigne would require 10s, if not 100s of millions of dollars up front, for servers etc etc.
given that, people will only invest money in search engines that make money; user desires are secondary. look at google: it does a really crappy job as a search engine (think about what you want out of a search engine, then compare to what you get; google gets a C- at best) and part of the reason it is crappy is because it exists to sell ads, rather then help
us

Re:Answer

[jc42]

That's not mine; mine is 192.168.1.103.

So I'm two better than you guys.

Re:Answer

[jc42]

The power structure of the world has and will always be a pyramid, and those on the bottom have always had the strength and numbers to overthrow those above it, yet a look at the past 20 years in Myanmar/Burma and Argentina are enough to show you that people still, after thousands of years, aren't always quick to do it.

Actually, history is full of stories of the people at the top being overthrown by their "inferiors". But those people are human, too, so what they normally do is just step into their predecessors' position. For a few years or decades they're the ones on top. Then some of their inferiors repeat the process. (See Myanmar/Burma and Argentina for some recent examples. ;-)

The development of democracies has changed this a bit, but not as much as people like to think. It's usually difficult to run for office without the backing of the existing power structure, i.e., the major political parties. The rest of us can talk and complain all we like, but the power structure knows that it can safely ignore us.

Re:Answer

[Anonymous Coward]

If each of you here went over to 10 people's homes and set them up on something like Tor, and showed them how to protect their privacy and avoid malware and advertisement

Um, running Tor without having a good idea of what you're doing and what the risks are is a good way to RUIN your privacy. Repeat after me: Tor doesn't provide privacy, it provides anonymity.

You also have to understand how Tor works. It's not called "The Onion Router" for nothing, and for the most part, everyone and their dog can run a Tor node. Quite a few people do, too, and while you probably won't have much to fear from the intermediate nodes, the exit nodes WILL see your real traffic.

This necessarily means that you'll have to use encryption, and stay away from sites that don't support it or that leak e.g. session cookies. Think Firesheep was bad? Think again. And really, all the usual suspects do run exit nodes, too. 4chan trolls, spammers, criminals, and your favorite three-letter agency all do.

Installing Tor for people who don't understand it is a disaster. To do so to improve their privacy is absurd. So please, before you install Tor for someone, think long and hard about whether it'll actually benefit them.

Re:Answer

[internic]

I'm actually curious, what sorts of things are you talking about? I assume things like adblock, but it sounds like you're thinking of a lot more than that.

Re:Answer

[SuricouRaven]

It helps that while google's results may be crappy, it's competitors are worse. There are great technological difficulties in making search effective. Google has the best engineers in the industry. Their only serious competitor is Bing, and almost every last percentage point of their market share can be attributed not to the quality of their service, but the advantage they gain from being heavily promoted by Internet Explorer, which in turn remains successful only because of it's bundling with Windows.

Re:Answer

[SuricouRaven]

Those hopeful sniffers of data are useful, in their own way. They are some of the few people willing to take the personal risk of running an exit node, and potentially being mistakenly identified as a terrorist or trader in child pornography.

Re:Answer

[Damek]

I agree with your basic argument here that people aren't always quick to shift power, but to this assumption:

The power structure of the world has and will always be a pyramid...

No it hasn't, and isn't everywhere. See People Without Government by Harold Barclay (too cynical for my taste, but good), and then consider the organizational structure of Food Not Bombs. It is entirely possible for people to function non-hierarchically. People without an -archy tend to be lost, and look for the next leader to follow, because they lack an awareness of how to function without it. Most people in representative democracies have culturally absorbed the concepts of voting and things like "robert's rules of order" into the backs of all their heads, but once you've absorbed a different system like formal consensus as a replacement for one like robert's rules, suddenly you start to see new possibilities.

Direct action movements have been building on and fine-tuning these ideas since the '70s...

Re:Answer

[petit_robert]

>Direct action movements have been building on and fine-tuning these ideas since the '70s...

Indeed. As a software developer, I can vouch for the incredible success that is open source software, where performance meets pleasure of use, all for free.

When you see those results, you really start wondering just what is the need for all those corporate hierarchical layers that exist in the proprietary world.

Re:Answer

[Damek]

Well I don't know that open source folks use consensus, we're talking about real world direct action vs. software development and I'm not sure the two worlds are that aware of each other.

Also, yeah, for certain priorities that ignore down to earth human priorities, hierarchical organization is great. It's just, you know, if you value getting things done RIGHT, in human terms, rather than just getting things done, your choice of process is pretty important.

I'd rather have an iPod in ten years instead of one year if it means no one works in inhuman conditions and everyone has a say in how their life runs. I count exploitation and marginalization as pretty significant costs of capitalism and oligarchy.

The Gov't

[Dthief]

Unfortunately the US government (at least in the US) has pulled ahead in terms of controlling the internet via seizure: July: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2010/07/01/ice-seizes-website-domains-part-copyright-crackdown Nov: http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/130763-homeland-security-dept-seizes-domain-names- Dec: ? And in the UK its the police: Mid-November: http://libcom.org/news/police-force-shut-down-fitwatchorguk-16112010 Late-November: http://www.techeye.net/internet/uk-police-want-power-to-shut-down-websites

Re:The Gov't

[Dthief]

Sorry for the shitty formatting, here is a more legible format Unfortunately the US government (at least in the US) has pulled ahead in terms of controlling the internet via seizure:

July: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2010/07/01/ice-seizes-website-domains-part-copyright-crackdown

Nov: http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/130763-homeland-security-dept-seizes-domain-names-

Dec: ?

And in the UK its the police:

Mid-November: http://libcom.org/news/police-force-shut-down-fitwatchorguk-16112010

Late-November: http://www.techeye.net/internet/uk-police-want-power-to-shut-down-websites

Re:The Gov't

[larry bagina]

No surprise that the DHS, the people who don't understand the 4th amendment don't understand the 5th either. No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Re:The Gov't

[girlintraining]

Unfortunately the US government (at least in the US) has pulled ahead in terms of controlling the internet via seizure:

They've pulled ahead in terms of controlling one network resource: DNS. That does not mean control of the internet.

Re:The Gov't

[hedwards]

Technically yes, more accurately no. Few people would be able to go anywhere online without DNS. Few people at this point go around the net by IP address and trying to do so is difficult as things can and do change and you're not really going to know without a bit of extra effort whether or not that's a legitimate redirect. Having to manually check each one is a pain.

Re:The Gov't

[hedwards]

To be fair, it's been sliding for a while. Just compensation in my view shouldn't allow for the government to condemn property and pay peanuts for it. Doesn't strike mas as particularly just. Yes, under certain circumstances the government does need certain specific property for things like building bridges or roads, but paying anything other than the assessed value doesn't strike me as particularly just.

Re:The Gov't

[zach_the_lizard]

You think those amendments really count anymore? I got stopped by a drunk driving checkpoint without any probable cause beyond "he was in a vehicle." Eminent domain lets them take whatever they want, especially in light of the latest ruling on it, for any purpose. Just compensation is whatever the government says it is.

Re:The Gov't

[girlintraining]

It's a pain now. But if power is abused enough, we'll find DNS servers popping up that are alternatives for censorship-enabled countries like the United States and China.

Re:The Gov't

[Sepodati]

They're shutting down sites that help people infringe on copyright. Why do guys keep defending sites that are breaking the law? What logical progression goes from "shutting down sites that help infringe" to "mandate a government DNS"?

If you want to get technical, the government didn't "seize" anything? They updated a DNS entry. The original site, server, files, equipment, goods, etc. are still in the hands of the owner.

I disagree with the length of copyright and think the industry should make more things available online legally, but I'm not going to defend sites that primarily exist only to help people break the law.

Re:The Gov't

[LaminatorX]

They may not have seized the servers, but the government effectively DoS'ed them for 90%+ of their users at the behest of the ip cartels without due process. If they can do it to these guys with no repercussions or oversight, they can do it to some sight you do care about.

Re:The Gov't

[Sepodati]

Really? How does the progression from "sites dealing in counterfeit goods" to "sites with dissenting opinion" happen? What court is going to issue that order unless the accusers are lying?

Re:The Gov't

[Dthief]

Just because one can use torrents to break the law doesnt mean that torrent sites are for breaking the law. The material posted could be open-source, or owned by the poster.

I would defend the postal service if it got shut down because someone mailed illegal materials to someone else.

Re:The Gov't

[Dthief]

And what stops them from lying. As there was not any apparent due process, it means that they could say whatever wihtout a strong burden of proof.....when I search for torrents (only legal of course) I use google or bing, why are they any more exempt than torrent-finder.com which doesnt host any torrents, but simply searches sites that do.

Re:The Gov't

[Sepodati]

Let's be realistic here for a second and stop this bullshit skirting the law defense.

Go to torrent-finder.info and you'll see "high speed download" links for copyright infringing works. The "popular tags" all look like copyright infringing works. It is very obvious that they exist only to help people infringe on copyrights and make advertising money off of it.

While you may be able to do something similar with Google, but that is not the primary reason they exist.

How is securing a court order before changing the DNS not a part of due process?

Re:The Gov't

[RightSaidFred99]

You're all the ones that want Net Neutrality. Do you think they'll just come in and impartially keep everything on a level playing field and leave everything else alone? Fucking please.

Re:The Gov't

[Sepodati]

And that's exactly why they can't shut down the bittorrent protocol or games and operating systems from distributing via bittorrent. That's why you don't see linuxtracker.org (for example) on the list of sites.

It's obvious that while the blocked sites encourage using a legal protocol, their primary function is to encourage it's use for copyright infringement.

Re:The Gov't

[awol]

A random breath test (as we call it where I'm from) is a completely acceptable price to pay when travelling on a limited public resource (the roads) with a bunch of asshats that continue to drive drunk putting me in danger.

Re:The Gov't

[Archangel Michael]

First they came for the handguns, then assault rifles, then semiautomatic, then large bore, then ... they came for you and you couldn't stop them.

There is no Constitution any longer. It doesn't mean what it says, and you're just too stupid to realize that it means what the government says it means.

Re:The Gov't

[Archangel Michael]

So what you're saying is that you're afraid of the government?

"A government afraid of its citizens is a Democracy. Citizens afraid of government is tyranny!"
— Thomas Jefferson

We are more afraid of our government than our government is afraid of us.

Re:The Gov't

[Archangel Michael]

Tyranny then it is, because we're too pussified to do anything about it.

Power

[hb79]

With great power comes great responsibility. Most of these big companies are missing at least one of those.

Re:Power

[Archangel Michael]

Not just companies, but the government too. It was the government that seized the sites, not the corporations that asked them to. But it isn't Bush in the white house so all is good.

Re:why are its users so stupid?

[biryokumaru]

Why are users so stupid as to hand control of the web over to *anybody*? Why are they so keen to support proprietary protocols, closed ecosystems, and single-vendor grabs for power?

Because it's easier. I know guys who are intelligent, capable engineers who buy Macs because "it just comes with everything they need, and it just works." I'm not really convinced they're in the wrong, either.

Me

[RAMMS EIN]

Who will win control of the Web? I will. In fact, I already have it, and have had it since some time in the 1990s. And if some entity somehow takes that control away from me, I or one of my many fellow producers of web content will create a new Web, and we will use that.

Maybe I'm dreaming, but...

[zill]

The people?

Doesn't matter which one(s) control the web

[mikein08]

We, the users, will lose. And we will lose because of apathy. So we will get what we deserve. But that's OK, afaiac. I visit maybe a dozen different websites on any kind of regular basis and am quite capable of ignoring ads. So I don't really care. Home computers can be used for a lot more than web surfing.

Easier to read article

[cheebie]

Or you could go read the 'print' version which is all on one page and not 75% advertisement.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/363175/who-will-win-the-battle-for-control-of-the-web/print

Re:Easier to read article

[TheRaven64]

Or, even easier, you could see that the domain name is pcpro.co.uk, and skip right to the comments without reading the troll, sorry, article.

Oh?

[Xacid]

I'm pretty much talking out my ass but what is all this "control the web" nonsense? Isn't that precisely what we're 100% against?

And perhaps it's semantics + bad journalism. What they seem to be really asking - "whose technologies will gain the highest presence on the web?"

But that's not really "control" by any means.

Car analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

Who will win the battle for control of the roads?

Some car guy investigates the war between Toyota, General motors, Ford and BMW for road domination.

In the 90 years since Henry Ford produced the first affordable car, our expectations of what the automobile can deliver have changed beyond all recognition. However, the core experience of running an internal combustion engine has remained largely intact. Now that’s all set to change.

Blah, blah, blah, six pages...

Until the dust settles, it’s too early to say which company is likely to emerge triumphant. The only safe prediction is that there will be plenty more twists, turns, alliances and battles to come before the war is finally decided.

None of the above

[pianophile]

I hope that neither Apple, MSFT, nor Google gets *everything* they want.

Re:None of the above

[mmcxii]

You're not using your soul anyway. You'd never even miss it.

Missing the point

[joepress99]

The web should be renamed the ebb for ebb and flow.
Right now, Facebook is taking over the web.
Soon, people will realize Facebook is just AOL without the free coasters.
It will be on to the next BIG thing.

Re:Missing the point

[hey]

I hope Facebook dies.

Re:Missing the point

[insertwackynamehere]

Could you and the GP explain what it is about Facebook that makes you so angry when others use it? Do you think that given an opportunity, you would bar citizens from accessing Facebook, possibly because you look down on them or think it is for their own good? Keep in mind no one is making YOU use Facebook; I am inquiring about your anger at others' usage.

Re:Missing the point

[SuricouRaven]

Imagine seeing two street performers. The first is struggling for money giving lectures on the implications of the uncertainly princible on maximum information density, and how this may touch upon the philosophical considerations of free will in a finite-state system. The second is a comedian a big, well-paying crowd even though most of his jokes involve flatulence and he never uses a word of more than two syllables.
That second performer represents facebook games, and facebook is what gives him the crowd.

Re:Missing the point

[hey]

I am pro freedom. Facebook users trade away some freedom when they use it. They probably aren't aware that they are. Its a tricky problem... banning people from Facebook doesn't promote freedom either. (Why is Facebook bad? It is growing so much it may soon "be the internet". Once company should not control the internet.)

Re:why are its users so stupid?

[cheebie]

I'm one of those engineers.

I ran windows for a long time and got sick of the crappy OS and security so poor 50% of the CPU power is dedicated to preventing me from getting hacked.

Then I ran Ubuntu for a few years. This time I got tired of the completely crappy/inconsistent interfaces, and having to spend way too much of my time being a sysadmin.

Now I've got a Mac. It's nicely designed, I don't have to mess with it, and I've got a Unix-variant at my fingertips when I'm feeling that command-line itch. I still have to deal with lack of software due to Windows dominance, but I'm learning to live without some stuff.

All of this is on my home machine. At work where I need the real thing it's vterms to a Unix box, baby.

Having said that, I did this because it was MY CHOICE. I didn't hand control over to anyone. I can install just about any software I care to on this machine and Steve Jobs is not going to show up with a baseball bat. OSS paranoia about the big bad corporations coming to steal your compilers doesn't help anything.

Of course its ultimately the ......

[3seas]

providers of internet access...

Re:why are its users so stupid?

[Concerned Onlooker]

So, you're saying they should have bought a Windows machine? Your exclusion of mentioning Windows implies that. By the way, a default Mac comes with more FOSS software installed than a Windows box ever will. But good troll anyway.

Have you stopped beating your wife?

[pr100]

Great example of a loaded question :/

Re: The question is biased

[openfrog]

You and I, silly people. Why are we deluding ourselves into believing only massive multinational companies can control the web,

You are right that the Web belongs to you and I. And it goes further. TFA asks the question backwards:

Control of this new evolution of the web is up for grabs. Each of the big three computing companies – Microsoft, Apple and Google – has its own radically different vision to promote.

This question is biased. The Web has not been created by corporate entities and is not "up for grabs". The web has evolved out of the cumulative connectedness of public networks through public standards, which development is still overseen by the WWW Consortium. Attempts to privatize parts of it (eg. AOL) have failed and new attempts must fail if we wish to see the Web further innovate.

Read Tim Berners-Lee latest article. It articulates the questions facing the evolution of the Web so much more clearly:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web

Re: The question is biased

[openfrog]

Sorry to reply to my own post, but to put Microsoft, Apple and Google contentions on the same plane is just wrong. Of these, only Google is purely a Web company, and is also the only one who defends the public standards that have made the Web, and its own existence, possible.

The other two are, indeed, grabbers.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[beakerMeep]

I believe they said "worlds largest creative software company"

/wondering if the title of your post is an attempt to suggest a moderation for your post.

Hopefully Nobody.

[wideBlueSkies]

See post title, thanks.

Re: The question is biased

[spire3661]

Google is not purely a web company. They make hardware, they make appliances, they make physical stuff.

Facebook

[fermion]

The web is the opiate of the masses. Control be by the firm that has customers, as they will be able to set the standards. MS set the standard for desktop and the mid web because they has the users and could deliver those user as customers to other firms.

Almost no one really knows how to use a computer. Almost no one knows how to create a domain name and create content, even using one click installs of pre fab websites. Most people do not want to learn. MS is losing market share because most firms do not want to pay licensing and skilled labour to do this work.

Whoever delivers the machines the average user need to access the web will define the way that the web pages are developed. Be it HTML 5, Flash, with a WIMP or more likely touch interface. Since Adobe does not design machines, and firms do not use flash, my money is on HTML for most things. The machines will be Apple and Google, for the average user. The lockin will be Apps and video and books. This, though, bodes well for future. Amazon has the book reader, and can be used on all devices. Video is delivered in a number of formats, again across many device, except for losers such as blockbuster. Apple is caving in cross compiled Apps, though the vendors of Android devices are likely to create incompatibility.

But if the kids grow up on facebook,and facebook can keep them, then Facebook will be the firm that dictates the general direction of the web, in much the same way Google does now.

Re:Facebook

[mfnickster]

Whoever delivers the machines the average user need to access the web will define the way that the web pages are developed. Be it HTML 5, Flash, with a WIMP or more likely touch interface.

I keep hoping someone will notice that HTTP is not the only Internet protocol in existence!

HTML has been stretched way beyond its original intent - to deliver static, stateless text-based documents. In the mad rush to push multimedia onto the net, someone decided that the Web browser is the proper platform for delivery of all content, whether it's text, graphics, sound, video, animation, VR, mail, newsgroups, RSS, etc. etc. HTML5 is just the latest symptom of the illness.

When is someone going to notice that not all applications have the same needs? Some need statefulness, some don't. Some need asynchronous streaming, form fields, database querying, error correction, etc. and some don't.

IMHO the Internet needs to recover from Kitchen Sink Syndrome first, then each of these companies can push its own proprietary protocols and applications. If people go for it, great. If not, they can go back to free standards.

Hope

[jav1231]

Hopefully not Microsoft or Google. I'm sick of people referring to the Internet as "The Cloud!" If we call it The Cloud, the terrorists win! Okay, then don't call it The Cloud for the children's sake!

War?

[JamesRing]

I hate the categorisation of companies providing competing products to consumers in a marketplace as "war". War is generally counter-productive and destructive, competition is necessary and healthy.

Re: The question is biased

[jo_ham]

So that whole deal with Apple taking a GPL engine, enhancing it and developing it, and pushing HTML5 and CSS, and striving hard to ensure that Webkit passed the Acid Tests, among other standards compliance...

MS finally pulling its finger out with IE9 development, and decent HTML5 demonstrations, looking like it will at last be on a par with the other browsers for web standards.

That was all just a myth, right?

Google is not the only one promoting the public standards that have made the web.

Isn't this missing the point...

[TheLongshot]

When the real battle is Net Neutrality? If that falls, it will be the telcos who will control the web and the gatekeeper for all of these other companies.

I also find it laughable that people think the Government is going to "control the internet", when many in the government are owned by corporate interests. That's the tail wagging the dog.

I think legislators like things the way they are

[TheScreenIsnt]

Our best hope for the desired outcome (keep the status quo: no one controls the web) is that legislators like the web the way it works now.
I recall that when DVRs were new, there was doubt about whether or not the FCC would get involved and make things suck.
The chairman of the FCC at the time was quoted as saying "I just got one of these Tivo things and it's great!"
As far as I could tell, that was that.
It's not a perfect analogy because corruption *could* have influenced that attitude, whereas anarchy on the Web benefits everyone in general and no one in particular.
Still, I suspect that our legislators know that the Web is a beautiful thing and wish to leave it the way it is.
This is all off-topic for TFA, but the provocative headline leads us towards this more (most?) important topic.

Simple Answer

[SilverHatHacker]

Facebook.

Web applications

[Max_W]

Create a web-application with Flash or SilverLight? With Acrobat?

I would rather say Apache, PHP, MySQL (PostgreSQL), JavaScript, GIMP, Notepad++, Firefox.

But how to do it with Flash, Silverlight, Acrobat, Apple-whatever? Will it work at all? Will someone use it?

Reality is Hardware

[cinnamon colbert]

The idea that the web will not be under gov't or corp control is silly, because the web is 50% hardware - billions of dollars of fiber optic and cisco routers and servers, and someone
has to pay for that stuff
and he who pays, rules. Seriously, if yo have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in fiber optic cable, are you going to do anything that in any way interferes with your ability to make as much as possible ?
given the avg intelligence level of corp c suite excecs, that means many companies will try really stupid and obnoxious things, so even if web control is bad, alot of companies will try it
You really think a dis organized bunch of stallmanites can stand against Verizon ?
look at wall street and TARP; despite a national outcry that forced congress to vote down TARP I, they still got it passed, with no controls on wall street; the money boys got a trillion dollar gift to wall street, opposed by the vast majority of americans, thru congress. YOu think a bunch of stallmanites are going to have better success against the companies taht want web control ?
And all of you who put your faith in Obama: go and read the N Y Times story about excelon's nuclear waste dump; short story, excelon wanted to store nuclear wastge in a poor neighborhood that Obama represented early in his career; the people of this town turned to now U S Senator Obama, who promised them he would do all he could to stop this waste site. Obama went back to DC, cut a deal behind closed doors to allow the waste site, then denied he had cut a deal.

China

[NicknamesAreStupid]

This is a numbers game. I would say that English speaking countries have an advantage, especially including India. However, most of them are 'democratic', which in this case means they agree to disagree. China is motivated, focused, and very structured. They have been effective in controlling the web within China and have started exporting that expertise globally. Most corporations want to have a stricter version of their Great Wall.

At some point, there will be two 'Internets". One will be tightly controlled and be primarily B-to-B, B-to-N, or N-to-N, basically a catanet of secure networks. The other will be the "Open Internet," full of VPNs to secure access points of the controlled Internet, and lots of P-to-P with poor performance and bad security. It will be free, as large companies will subsidize it as a transport for their subscription VPNs, but most users will not see much value to the 'free' part.

Of course, no one will have absolute control. There is really no point to that goal. The point is to control enough to profit from it. However you define profit, it is still relatively narrow control. Don't worry, most users will get screwed by it occasionally, as usual.

Funny that...

[denzacar]

Mine is the same as yours only mine goes up to 11.

False: It's a Collective Action Problem

[Geof]

Why are we deluding ourselves into believing only massive multinational companies can control the web, or that the government can control the internet, etc.? They are granted power because we give it to them.

This is a myth. If it were true, the actions of the government would reflect the wishes of the majority. But it isn't true:

it is not in fact true that the idea that groups will act in their self-interest follows logically from the premise of rational and self-interested behavior. It does not follow, because all of the individuals in a group would gain if they achieved their group objective, that they would act to achieve that objective, even if they were all rational and self-interested. Indeed unless the number of individuals in a group is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests.- Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action

A single actor or small number of actors will always have an advantage if it requires coordination of a large number of people to oppose them. There are a number of reasons for this, among them:

• In a large group individuals will attempt to free-ride, not contributing to the collective effort.
• While the collective benefit may be very large, the benefit to individuals is very small. They may lack sufficient incentive to act. In other words, transaction costs are high. This is why we have firms - organizations that operate in the market but are not organized like a market internally.
• When all or most members of a group are required to cooperate in order to act effectively, each member of the group knows that his or her individual action is unlikely to make the difference between success or failure. The larger the group, the less significant the individual action. So, for example, many people don't vote: they know it is highly unlikely that their vote will make any difference to the outcome.

Re:why are its users so stupid?

[Mr. Slippery]

I didn't hand control over to anyone. I can install just about any software I care to on this machine and Steve Jobs is not going to show up with a baseball bat.

It is likely that this will no longer be the case if you continue with the Apple platform. They have already begun to move the Mac toward the same walled-garden, censored model as the iPad. No, jerkwad Jobs won't come over with a baseball bat, he'll just make it difficult-to-impossible for you to install any non-Apple-approved software on your box in the first place.

Of course not...

[denzacar]

and Steve Jobs is not going to show up with a baseball bat.>

Everyone knows he uses an iPhone for that.

If anything...

[JasoninKS]

If anything, all of those companies are needed for the good of the web. Say Google comes out with a wild innovation, now Apple has to match it plus find a way to top it. Then Microsoft has to best that, and so on and so on. Having multiple companies pushing the envelope also pushes innovation. Granted, not every new "invention" works out, but it forces the next guy to do as good or better.

Re: The question is biased

[thechink]

Apple has been quite consistent when it comes to the web. They've always supported and defend open web standards. Their maintenance of Webkit (which is used for Google Chrome) is a prime example.

Try and name one Apple-sponsored proprietary web technology.

too late

[alphatel]

It's too late to ask this question. Google beat everyone in this game. Wait 5-10 years if you would like to see a new entity "own" the web.
Yes I understand no one owns it and I agree, but based on the premise of the article, it's as if Google was in a war against its competitors in traffic control. The new "rivals" lost years ago. They can't suddenly "win". Something new is needed and it will take a long time for that to happen. Period!

The Web is awful anyway...

[Bobakitoo]

It full of spam, viruss and random corporate junk. Gopher could be revived or a new protocol implemented, ditching the World Wide Web for something better. And leaving all the twiters and farcebook back on the old www.

They can control all they want, build walled garden.. But for as long as the Internet remain neutral, we can build a better Web.

Re:You're 110% correct (good job "git")... apk

[trapnest]

Your "highly excessive" use of "quotation marks" makes it really hard to hide your "obvious" "advertisement" for your "help article".

Re:You're 110% correct (good job "git")... apk

[trapnest]

It also "makes" it a "bitch" to "read".

Re:why are its users so stupid?

[trapnest]

More FUD. Apple is developing a delivery platform for applications. If you don't like it open firefox and google for "python ide mac os x" or whatever you're looking for. They're not going to force you to use the app store. That's retarded and you're retarded for thinking it.

Re:Looks like none of the above...

[Sepodati]

They're changing DNS entries for sites that primarily exist to help people break the law.

Re: The question is biased

[dryeo]

h264

Encourage them to get a Mac

[Brannon]

Outfitting my family with Macs has taken my weekend IT role down to basically zero.

Re:Encourage them to get a Mac

[SuricouRaven]

I considered that, for about two minutes. Then I remembered what it was like when Office bought out the ribbon interface, and imagined having to go through three months of "Where's the start menu gone? This is a stupid computer!"

Since when are Macs proprietary?

[Brannon]

One of the most standards compliant browsers from anywhere with a company that is pushing hard to rid the web of the proprietary Flash de facto standard in favor of an honest-to-god industry standard--on a platform where anyone can develop for free and distribute their apps however they want.

Re:Since when are Macs proprietary?

[SuricouRaven]

Macs arn't. But almost every *other* apple product is. Just try distributing software for the iPad without Apple's express permission - you can't, their code-signing system makes it technologically impossible short of having all your users jailbreak. The fear is that Apple will realise that the iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple TV, and so on is really raking in the cash right now - and that business model could be adapted for the mac too, shifting towards increasing lock-in and intigration, using their macs to promote their media store in the same way the iTunes store and iPhone feed off each other.

Re:why are its users so stupid?

[biryokumaru]

Um... did no one notice the "I'm not really convinced they're in the wrong, either." part?

I feel like I don't even see web pages anymore alr

[Jartan]

Title seems wrong. We should be asking if we'll ever see the web again or if it will forever be buried under a layer of flash.

Re:why are its users so stupid?

[StripedCow]

I can install just about any software I care to on this machine and Steve Jobs is not going to show up with a baseball bat.

Not yet. However, if a critical mass of people are willing to accept the locked down iOS model for their laptop/desktop machines as well, then there you go. It is not paranoia. It is simply a matter of acknowledging that in free markets, businesses target the "average person".

Re: The question is biased

[openfrog]

h264

Spot on!

What Apple is doing in the realm of video with h264 tells where Apple stands on open standards.

Google, one the other hand, is putting its money where its mouth is, with WebM and VP8, which have been released as open standards, without any tricky ambiguity.

a trite analogy

[crow5599]

Who will win control of cyberspace? Will it be Yahoo, Netscape, or America Online?

You're too narrowminded....

[rts008]

Most comments have not been in defense of copyright infringement, but opposed to lack of due process.

'LaminatorX' summed it up rather accurately for you.

If you want to get technical, the government didn't "seize" anything? They updated a DNS entry. The original site, server, files, equipment, goods, etc. are still in the hands of the owner.

That sounds a bit strange for someone defending IP[copyright] rights.
I mean, just how do you propose they seize a website? Smash in and grab the servers, etc.?
That only works when the servers are in your area of jurisdiction. To do that in the ontopic case, we would have to invade another country to seize the servers.
In this case, we updated the DNS entry to deny access to the website, just as a seizing the servers would.

Within the framework of current laws, the word 'seize' is just as valid for this discussion[and the usual 'lawyering' that happens here] as any other currently used terms in law that are used for other forms of IP concepts.[hint: 'wiretapping' as applied to digital communications]

If you are going to defend physical property laws/concepts being applicable to IP, then it would seem to me that you would also be mentally flexible enough to accept 'seize'
as a valid term for this discussion.

Judges and the courts have to do this very thing every day.

The internet change the world...quickly. The laws were written about concepts and in language that has not caught up yet.

And now we get to the juicy bits.
Who writes the updates/patches to the laws? How are they written? How are they applied? How can they be abused/misused?
That's what all this is about...
Where is due process?
How does this work? How is it being applied?
Is it arbitrary? What's the guidelins?
Are the Corporations in control now?
Why is national security affected by pirates?

Re:You're too narrowminded....

[Sepodati]

Most comments have not been in defense of copyright infringement, but opposed to lack of due process.

What exactly is due process when most of the organization exists outside of your jurisdiction? We can't arrest the owner or serve him to appear in US court. Yet, his actions are allowing US citizens to violate copyright laws. The only thing we have jurisdiction over is the .com DNS resolution, right?

So is not due process getting a court order and serving it to those in the US controlling DNS resolution for the site and having them to change it? They don't have to, do they? They could challenge it and take it to court, but who in their right mind is going to do that for an obviously illegal site?

Google? Apple?

[nurb432]

Too late, the US Federal Government seems to have already (re)taken control.

Re: The question is biased

[thechink]

eWorld?

That was an dialup service (like AOL) and it died 14 years ago.

Re: The question is biased

[thechink]

Google uses H.264 too and is a codec that's free to use for video playback on the Internet.

I was referring to web technologies unique to Apple.

Re:by the looks of things

[SuricouRaven]

Not the government. Just governments. All of them. The US has the advantage of a head start, but I imagine in fifty years every government in the world will have their own different policies on how they want to manage those parts of the internet that fall within their physical borders. And somewhere will be an army of network administrators getting very angry because people in the US want to watch porn from servers in Africa, and the government in Egypt just announced it will block any traffic from servers it deems immoral but won't reveal which IPs that includes.

Re:why are its users so stupid?

[SuricouRaven]

Force, no - macs have too many useful niches for that. But they may very well make the app store so heavily promoted that it becomes impossible for non-app-store software to compete on equal terms, or deny non-approved software access to some capabilities of the OS (eg, low-level control of the wireless interfaces) for 'security' reasons.

My Thoughts

[mr_bigmouth_502]

I hope that nobody ends up controlling the web, except of course the users. Seriously, wasn't the original point of the web to be like this giant source of information created for the people by the people?

There's some of that...

[Brannon]

but then they pick it up--these are computers designed to be used by humans.

Are there not enough real problems?

[Brannon]

that you have to invent fantasy ones so you have something to panic about?

What if I said that I was worried about you becoming a pedofile because you've had sex before and who knows where that may lead?

Just kidding, I don't really think that you've had sex before--but you get my point.

Re: The question is biased

[dryeo]

Google paid to use H264 due to it being the best common format that was already being pushed by Apple and Adobe.
H264 has only been free to use for video playback for 3 months so you can't say Apple chose it because it was free. You also need a licensed decoder to play that video. Google paid to license their browser and Apple rather paid or didn't have to being one of the consortium that licenses it.
It would also be nice if it was free to produce H264 content to put on the internet. Most all video cameras, even the professional ones, are only licensed for personal use.
Apple naturally does support open standards on the web as they've traditionally been too small to have much of an affect.
If we talk about the Internet, I understand iTunes is proprietary to Apple and officially the only way to use iTunes.
Note that the above only applies to the increasing number of countries that recognize software patents.

Re: The question is biased

[thechink]

Apple licenses H.264 too. Probably due to the lack of any decent open alternatives at the time (2003).

How is iTunes a proprietary web technology?

Re: The question is biased

[dryeo]

I really don't know much about iTunes. As I said, it seems to me that you need to use the official iTunes program to access the iTunes store. If I bought an iPod, since I don't run any of the supported operating systems I couldn't buy music to put on my player. Open would be if I could just fire up one of my standards compliant browsers, go to the iTunes site and buy music. As it is I can't even legally rip my own music to AAC to put on my iPod. I assume that at least the iPod can show up as a removable drive.

Re:by the looks of things

[Lanteran]

50 years? 50 months, or more likely, weeks.

Terrible, terrible article

[hkmwbz]

The article is not about who will control the web. It's about whether proprietary applications will take over from the web (iOS Apps Android Apps, Flash Apps, Silverlight Apps, etc.). It's so confused it even forgets to mention the dominant mobile browser, Opera, when talking about the mobile web! That's just sad.

A terrible, shallow, poorly researched article, in my opinion.

Re:why are its users so stupid?

[Mr. Slippery]

They're not going to force you to use the app store. That's retarded and you're retarded for thinking it.

They've already forced that on two platforms. It's "retarded" to not consider the possibility of them applying the same strategy to their remaining platform. I mean, how is Jobs going to bring you "freedom from porn" if you can install whatever unapproved software you like?

I think Dan Gilmore's got it right:

I fear that Apple will use the inroads it makes with the Mac App Store to further restrict what users of future Macs can do. It couldn't retroactively lock down Macs the way it's locked down the iOS devices, not without creating a firestorm. But it could someday decide to sell only iOS machines, or declare that new machines running some future Mac OS -- not next summer's Mac OSX "Lion" version, apparently -- would work only under the same principles. I believe this is the endgame, but I'm hoping for the best.

(Oh, and Apple-fanboi mods: I'm not trolling. Disagreement != trolling.)

Re:Hug!

[TaoPhoenix]

After I strip ...they want to hug me until I choke.

Just entering for rule 34 completeness.
Awesome how many site concepts emerge from selective chopping of +5 comments.

Re:why are its users so stupid?

[Serious Callers Only]

More FUD. Apple is developing a delivery platform for applications. If you don't like it open firefox and google for "python ide mac os x" or whatever you're looking for. They're not going to force you to use the app store. That's retarded and you're retarded for thinking it.

I'm curious, why do you feel it is a retarded idea, as you so eloquently put it?

I develop for iPhones and don't think it at all unlikely that they will at first encourage, then recommend, then coerce, their developers to supply apps via the app store. The advantages for Apple are numerous:

• 30% cut of all sales on the platform
• Direct control over the direction of the platform
• Increased security for users (if apps are sandboxed and can only run in the sandbox as in iOS)
• Increased reliability for users (if all apps are tested for bugs before release)
• Encourages developers to work within the Apple ecosystem and not try to make cross platform apps using tech like Java
• Dramatically reduced support costs as they no longer have to support cocoa bridges, stuff like Carbon, or other UI toolkits like x11.
• A huge goldmine of user info on purchase habits, behaviour, common crashes etc
• Coercive control over competitors like Adobe, Microsoft and Google by delaying/denying apps like Flash for example

From Apple's point of view, there are a lot of upsides, and not very many downsides. They'd lose a few developers (including perhaps myself), a few techy users, and gain a huge number of users who really don't care what tech is used for apps on their computer, and view it more as an appliance than some kind of universal machine which they can bend to their will.

I imagine they'll choose a middle way rather than requiring the app store to install all software, and just make it difficult to run programs which have not been blessed by Apple, and impossible to make money selling software to normal users except in their store, but it is possible they'll go for full iOS style lockdown.