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And since you won't be able to modify web pages, it will also mean the end of customization, either for looks (ie. DarkReader, Stylus), conveniance (ie. Tampermonkey) or accessibility.

The community feedback is... interesting to say the least.

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[-] narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee 506 points 1 year ago

What the fuck is happening to the internet recently?

Twitter and Reddit CEOs completely losing their minds, and now Google of all companies wants to lock down the whole internet?

This isn't even close to being okay. It's 100% bullshit.

[-] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 263 points 1 year ago

Interest rates going up means investors are demanding more profit so all the tricks web companies have held off on till now are coming out.

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 194 points 1 year ago

A lot of them never had to make a profit before.

Rich idiots threw money at anything because while a million dollars is more than the vast amount of us will ever have, to them it's like buying a lotto scratcher.

The underlying issue is wealth imbalance.

[-] PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee 87 points 1 year ago

That wealth imbalance also pushes companies to force dumb shit like this on thier customers.

If Google were to just come out with a $10 a month plan that removed all the sleazy ways they try and profit from you, the overwhemling response would be "Oh great yet another subscription", because these subscriptions have become a significant chunk of people's income each month.

But what if greedy neoliberals hadn't been pocketing our pay rises for $20 years and that subscription was functionally $1? Most people would be happy to blow $20 supporting 20 different content providers.

Unfortunately, their greed is insatiable. There's always a room of executives doing their grubby little sums. "If people have $1, they probably have $2. We could double our profits! Then double our salaries!".

Inflation just means "If rich people find out you've got more money, they'll fuck you out of that too".

The $1 will never be enough. They'll keep charging more and more until people have nothing left to hand over. Then they'll figure out more ways to squeeze a profit out of you. Manipulating you with ads, selling your private data, turning your body into expensive dogfood -- whatever makes them a few more cents.

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[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 56 points 1 year ago

It's like in Silicon Valley when the VC tells them they don't need to be profitable they just need to market, then as soon as he dips below technically being a billionaire he demands that they focus on being profitable immediately

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[-] ddnomad@infosec.pub 114 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The enshittification of the internet shall continue.

We will fight and we will lose, as depressing as it sounds. The vast majority of people just don’t and won’t care.

[-] i_love_FFT@lemmy.ml 87 points 1 year ago

We're on Lemmy. We're already winning!

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[-] fearout@kbin.social 67 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I know, right? It’s so weird. In every single instance of some bullshit happening it’s easy to brush it off as incompetence or an attempt at profit maximization, but overall it feels a lot like some kind of targeted disassembly of whatever made the internet great and facilitated open discussions.

[-] Cube6392@beehaw.org 81 points 1 year ago

I don't think it's coordinated, I think it all starts from the same root cause: Silicon Valley Bank failed. These companies all need to do something they've really not done much of in the past: turn a profit. But these companies are not run by the business geniuses we were once convinced were running the show. Most of them live so far removed from a normal persons life that they don't understand what motivates us, what we want in a platform, and as soon as we provide feedback after they've already made a decision, they decide it's because we don't understand the squeeze they're under to make money.

  • Twitter: Elon Musk thinks he could make more money from subscriptions than advertisements. The whole thing's a disaster because that's really dumb. This case may be a little different though because there's some evidence Musk just wanted more people to see his tweets and to pay people to be his friend
  • Reddit: Spez fails to see that he has multiple revenue sources available to him so long as he keeps his users around. Somewhere, there was the right balance of charging for the API at a reasonable price, performing better market research on his user base to provide a better ad platform, and keeping the Reddit coin system in place as the base liked it because the user base paid more for that than most similar online payment schemes.
  • Google: this is the scary one. This is the one that seems like they know exactly what they're doing. They're ramping up their enshittification following the fall of SVB, but the way they're doing it is both malicious and a minor enough inconvenience that the majority of their users will stay. And they're doing it in small quiet ways. A little bit of tweaking how YouTube bans users here. A little bit of RFCs about DRM on the web there. Some PRs to chromium and android no one will notice. All to squeeze more ads into peoples online experiences. Their search product has been utter shit for about 6 years now, but people still prefer it over Bing or DuckDuckGo (which is a wrapper for Bing). They've learned the following lesson: if you're big enough, the citizens of the web will let you do it
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[-] frevaljee@kbin.social 56 points 1 year ago

Google has already been a worthless pos for years. Impossible to get relevant results, even with operators. You just get ads and irrelevant SEO sites. And adding "reddit" at the end of the query will probably not work so well in the future either, seeing how that site has also gone to shit.

And they have already tried monopolising the entire internet with their amp bullshit.

So this is just in line with their vision of making the whole internet into a pile of burning shit under their total control.

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[-] miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml 336 points 1 year ago

One comment mentions possible incompability with article 22 of the GDPR, and I sure hope the EU will stand their ground on this.

I can only imagine noyb letting all hell break loose. We need more people like him, dissecting corporations legal bs to find every last little thing we can possibly hold against them.

Obligatory use Firefox

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[-] jflorez@sh.itjust.works 234 points 1 year ago

This is the result of the world blindly using Chrome and other Chromium based browsers. Now with effectively full control over the browser that more than 90% of the world uses Google can force its will on the internet

[-] whereisk@lemmy.world 95 points 1 year ago

Given that Firefox is now faster than Chrome I see no reason to remain.

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[-] Sharkwellington@lemmy.one 58 points 1 year ago

Wait, is Google in the process of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish on the free internet?

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[-] TWeaK@lemm.ee 182 points 1 year ago

Inb4 you can only browse the internet with Chromium.

[-] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 154 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well, the engineers say it themselves: nothing would prevent websites developers to prevent access from browsers that do not support this "Web DRM".

My biggest fear though is that it becomes a standard which all browsers will have to support to stay relevant. And with Google building the engine used by the vast majority of browsers, they can force this upon other browser engines (ie. Safari and Firefox).

[-] sab@kbin.social 183 points 1 year ago

It's such a potent example why everyone who cares need to stop using Chromium based browsers before it's too late. Stunts like this would be much harder to pull if there wasn't a de facto browser monopoly.

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Ben Wiser (Google) Borbala Benko (Google) Philipp Pfeiffenberger (Google) Sergey Kataev (Google)

Congratulations, guys. You are now internet pariahs. Your unrepentantly mercenary lack of engineering ethics is now recorded for all eternity. You have nobody but yourselves to blame.

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[-] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 154 points 1 year ago

That's a good way for me to never visit your website again. Honestly, this kinda sounds like the death of the internet if I'm being honest. This would transform it from a free medium into a full blown corporate dystopia. It's really scary to see the digital (corporate) development over the past couple decades. Would be really cool if we don't move further towards some cyberpunk like future where megacorps control everything.

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[-] HurlingDurling@lemm.ee 139 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Fuck DRMs and fuck these turds

And they went ahead and blocked comments now - "An owner of this repository has limited the ability to comment to users that have contributed to this repository in the past."

Fucking cowards

EDIT: I went ahead and reported the distro as malware. Also, it feels like the internet is about to split in a open internet (basically just like tor) and a corporate internet where if you don't pay the big tech you can't access anything.

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[-] jabjoe@feddit.uk 107 points 1 year ago

This is exactly the kind of thing that demostrates why DRM shouldn't be part of the web standards. It's very existence is abuse and this use even more so.

DRM needs to be illegal.

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[-] zarathustra0@lemmy.world 106 points 1 year ago
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[-] Platform27@lemmy.ml 105 points 1 year ago

So soon we’ll need uBlock Origin FitGirl Edition?

[-] 100thCatMarch@kbin.cafe 66 points 1 year ago

Hopefully we won't have to deal with a uBlock Origin Empress Edition

[-] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 105 points 1 year ago

How can the smartest people be so dumb?

Please, please, PLEASE.. if you care about a healthy open internet, donate to Mozilla, Thunderbird, and/or the EFF, at the minimum, if you're able to.

I liked to subscribe to Youtube Premium to support my favourite channels but this kinda stuff turns me off.

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[-] ComeHereOrIHookYou@lemmy.world 102 points 1 year ago

Just this week or was it last week, I made a comment on some post that putting privacy aside, we should still be encouraging people to use Firefox instead of any chromium browsers to break control. It is good to see that right now I am just given a very good example why Chromium being a monopoly allows Google to control the spec (even if other companies are on board)

https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/pull/124/commits/7cd99782c90bab4104725e821d11b18bc2107218

This PR nails it

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[-] AndreTelevise@lemmy.world 93 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I already replaced my search engine, my social media and my Reddit.

Do you want me to replace my email too, Google?

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[-] BranBucket@lemmy.world 93 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This may honestly be it for me.

I quit playing games because of all the greed and hype, I went back to piracy when streaming started to fracture and greed set in, I left non-federated social media because of the enshittifaction and invasiveness, and I go to fairly extensive lengths to block ads and protect my privacy as much as possible...

And instead of moving to any number of fair, non-exploitive business models, they're just going to force ads down my throat like that episode of black mirror.

If this goes through I'll be sorely tempted to wipe everything I can and start over as best I can. Only interact with the Internet when I need to.

You'll find me paying cash at the local used bookstore, at least until all the major publishers make that illegal.

EDIT: It's honestly depressing, I genuinely enjoy technology and the internet, but when companies like Google are able to force garbage like this it just sucks all the joy out of it for me.

It's like everying is becoming a shitty mobile game. Do the toolsheds that develop Candy Crush clones not think we can understand why in app currencies are sold in bundles of 100 but every thing we purchase with them requires amounts that end with a five? Does Google not think we know the real motivation behind a system that strives to prove ads were delivered to your browser either?

I know a lot of people may not see the real driver here, but I'm tired of being underestimated and infantalized by a bunch of dorks trapped in a corporate echo chamber. I think I'd prefer it if they just straight up said they're going to sacrifice our privacy and user experience for a quick bump in stock value.

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[-] kool_newt@lemm.ee 90 points 1 year ago

All this enshittification lately really inspires me to de-google.

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[-] LaggyKar@programming.dev 87 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It doesn't seem to be targeting ad-blockers in particular (or other page customizing extensions), although that may result eventually. What it does do is let webpages restrict what web browsers and operating systems you are allowed to use, just like how SafetyNet on Android lets apps restrict you to using an OS signed by Google. That could end up with web pages forcing you to use a web browser and OS the big players like Google, Microsoft and Apple, blocking any less restrictive or less used competors like Firefox and Linux, thus creating a cryptographically enforced oligopoly. And even if they signed e.g. Firefox, it would only be certain builds of it. That would make it impossible to make a truly open-source browser that can access pages using this API. Quite concerning.

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[-] nonearther@lemmy.ml 86 points 1 year ago

Google is hindrance to open web, like IE7 was with ActiveX.

Only difference is that IE7 wanted developers to develop for IE7, while Google also want to fully control the web and bend it according to its needs

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[-] Saneless@lemmy.world 81 points 1 year ago

They've really strongly adopted their new "Do only evil" mantra

[-] yaycupcake@lemmy.blahaj.zone 78 points 1 year ago

This is super fucked up. I use Stylus extensively to customize the UI on so many sites. Not even for adblocking or that kind of thing, but for accessibility. I actually learned to code many years ago specifically so I could write my own userstyles so that popular websites would be more accessible for me. This is not just predatory on an ads and money level but on an accessibility level too.

[-] Skates@feddit.nl 75 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I reported him on github, for all the good that will do.

fucking shills

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[-] eth0p@iusearchlinux.fyi 75 points 1 year ago

Having thought about it for a bit, it's possible for this proposal to be abused by authoritarian governments.

Suppose a government—say, Wadiya—mandated that all websites allowed on the Wadiyan Internet must ensure that visitors are using a list of verified browsers. This list is provided by the Wadiyan government, and includes: Wadiya On-Line, Wadiya Explorer, and WadiyaScape Navigator. All three of those browsers are developed in cooperation with the Wadiyan government.

Each of those browsers also happen to send a list of visited URLs to a Wadiyan government agency, and routinely scan the hard drive for material deemed "anti-social."

Because the attestations are cryptographically verified, citizens would not be able to fake the browser environment. They couldn't just download Firefox and install an extension to pretend to be Wadiya Explorer; they would actually have to install the spyware browser to be able to browse websites available on the Wadiyan Internet.

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[-] madcaesar@lemmy.world 70 points 1 year ago

I hate the fact that one of the biggest and richest corporations in the world, is just a massive ad spamming dumpster fire. Imagine the good a powerful company like this could do, if 90% of their effort wasn't put into cramming ever more ads into people's eyeballs.

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[-] Kaltovar@lemmy.villa-straylight.social 70 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I literally swapped to Librewolf before the Rossman video was done. I was on Brave Browser before, but it's based on Chromium. Fuck Chromium and fuck Google. Fuck this shitty amoeba that tries to spread into and control everything.

I will post stupid shit on my federated forum and you will fucking live with it Google. Fuck you. Burn. It's time to break up the internet monopolies and do some trust busting. Someone pull FDR's rotten corpse out of the grave and put it back to work.

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[-] dunestorm@lemmy.world 66 points 1 year ago

Ads have already been proven to be an extremely ineffective marketing strategy; now Google wants to force them down our throats even more? Fuck off

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[-] Kushia@lemmy.ml 65 points 1 year ago

Google saw the enshitening of the web and went "hold my beer, I'll show you how it's done!".

[-] uncapybarable@lemmy.ml 62 points 1 year ago

Big fan of the "how dare you don't use professional language" vibe coming from the folks clinically discussing how to ruin what little remains of the open web.

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[-] lemann@lemmy.one 61 points 1 year ago

I hope Louis Rossmann catches wind of this - the more people know about this, the better chance we have at stopping this unnecessary "WEI" spec.

If an company wants a trusted environment for their code to execute in, they should be asking themselves why they're not running that code in an app, or better yet - on their own servers

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[-] tenth@lemmy.ml 60 points 1 year ago

Can someone give me an easy to understand example of what they are proposing? Assume that I don’t allow them to install any software/tool that helps them track me/my device.

I saw this comment and found it helpful but its still not clear to me

At its core, it establishes software components called "attesters" that decide whether your device and/or browser is "trustworthy" enough - as defined by the website you are trying to visit. Websites can enforce which "attesters" users must accept, simply by denying everybody access who refuses to bow down to this regime; or who uses attesters that are deemed "inappropriate"; or who is on a platform that does not provide any attesters the website finds "acceptable".

In short: it is specifically designed to destroy the open web by denying you the right to use whatever browser you want to use, on whatever operating system. It is next-level "DRM", introduced by affiliates of a company that already has monopolized the browser market. And the creators of this "proposal" absolutely know what they are attempting here.

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[-] ruination@discuss.tchncs.de 59 points 1 year ago

And they try to demonise Tor and I2P... At this rate, the dark web would soon be the only place to go.

[-] sol@thelemmy.club 58 points 1 year ago
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this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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