互联网与文化staltz.com
谷歌、Facebook 和亚马逊如何从根本上改变了网络
Google, Facebook, and Amazon have fundamentally transformed the web
2017 — 2019，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这篇文章认为，Web 在 2014 年前后开始衰落：流量和注意力越来越集中到 Google、Facebook、Amazon 等少数大平台，开放、分散的万维网被大公司的“围墙花园”取代。作者用流量数据和对平台行为的观察来说明，这种集中化不仅改变技术生态，也改变网络文化。
为什么经久不衰：它较早系统点出平台集中化、数据所有权和可替代性问题，今天读来仍切中要害。
HN 评论精选
核心论点成立：网络已被大公司主导，平台在回避其文化和社会责任。
这里的很多评论都在抠细节，论证的措辞未必完美，但我认为很难反驳核心观点：今天的 Web 更像是大公司的游乐场，新东西会以更迎合巨头的方式被建造。我最担心的不是经济层面，而是文化层面。最喜欢的例子是 Wikipedia——如果它今天还不存在，以现今如此公司化的网络文化，我们大概不会再得到一个 Wikipedia。YouTube 也是：它如今遵守规则，版权和商业友好政策偏向限制；它不想承担自身发明带来的不可预测后果，却假装那不是自己的职责。
dalbasal查看英文原文
A lot of the comments here seem to be quibbling. The analysis/argument isn't exactly how you/I would have phrased it. But beyond the details, I think it's hard to argue with the main point. The web is much more of a large corporation's playground today, far more. That means new things will be built in a different, more giant friendly way. The part of that that worries me most is the cultural part, more than the economic side. My favourite example is wikipedia. If we didn't already have wikipedia, I don't think we'd be likely to get one on today's web. The culture is just far too corporate for wikipedia to be the end result. Youtube's another sort of example. Democratic media! A new culture factory!... Youtubes play by the rules these days. Copyright.. business friendly policy, erring on the side of restriction. It's just more manageable. Nudity? Why annoy politicians and advertisers? Just give us the purple hills version. Violence? Do what TV does. Revolution? Maybe, yes. Sure. Up the arab spring! Wait.. no. actually, wait. Hold on, not in america. Look.., no just means not here. Political ads, eh...? How about you leave us out of this. They are no longer interested in the unfolding and unpredictable consequences of their inventions. Facebook is the world's news stand & coffee house. Youtube's regional political radio, newsletters & party magazine. They do not want this job, so they're pretending it isn't they're job. Pretending they won't have to draw lines between truth and lies, free speech and hate speech, laws and despotism. The fear driven incumbent mentality. It's a pity we didn't get more wikipedia's back when the gettin was good. I would have preferred to see a giant wikipedia end up with the fake news problem (which I think these two giants almost created themselves).
应通过多样化、数据自主和降低迁移成本来约束平台权力。
文章说得对，Google 的权力很可怕，问题是我们太依赖它。解决办法之一是分散使用：换邮件服务、试试 Bing、找 Google Docs 的替代品。Facebook 也一样，可以尝试别的社交网络和通讯应用；别人可能看不到我的帖子，直到我发个老式链接给他们。我们需要 Tim Berners-Lee 说的那种“POD”：数据属于你，任何你允许的社交网络或服务可以使用数据，但所有权仍归你，切换服务像换袜子一样容易。我们不必彻底取代 Google/Facebook，但应提供替代品并降低迁移成本——这是防止它们变恶的关键。
pascalxus查看英文原文
As the article points out, The power google is quite scary. The problem is, we depend on it for too many things. I think the solution is to diversify our usage of it. Perhaps, use a different email service, or start using Bing. Find, something else to replace google docs. By diversifying, we reduce our risk. Same for facebook, perhaps start using a different social network and messaging apps. Sure, no one will see my posts, that is until I send them a good old fashion link, to a photo of my cute daughter. we need those "PODS" from Tim Burner's Lee's https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/ways-to-decentralize-the-web/ In this model, all your data belongs to you. Any social network you allow or visit can make use of the data, but it all still belongs to you. And you'll be able to switch from Social network to social network or document provider(docs, spredsheets software) as easily as changing your socks. And we don't have to completely replace GOOG and FB, we should have to offer alternatives and reduce the cost of switching - That's the key to preventing these services from turning Evil. Are there any social networks out there currently that do this yet?
用流量占比衡量网络变化有偏差，应看用户主动行为。
这个分析有缺陷：它把流量规模等同于个人用户的主动行为。只按规模算，YouTube 或 Facebook 这类视频密集型站点当然占主导。更好的指标是用户主动发起的操作数量；虽然不知道怎么做，但那会更准确地衡量网络如何变化。
BatFastard查看英文原文
This analysis is flawed in that it equates size of traffic with individual user actions. Of course YouTube or another video heavy site like FB is going to dominate when only size is considered. A better metric would be a measurement of user initiated actions. Now sure how to pull that off, but it would be a more accurate measure of how the net is changing.
Google 在技术社区的信誉已明显下滑，且搜索仍缺乏竞争。
另外，2017 年到现在的变化是：那时 Google 仍受技术人崇敬，几年前说“Google 是恶的”还会显得荒谬，我每次说都会被同事和工程师嘲笑。我觉得转折始于 AMP 的推出、越来越多莫名停产的产品、一些新产品几乎一发布就失败，以及搜索质量和覆盖面的下降。Google 比任何科技巨头都更依赖技术人的信任：新产品或新语言几乎不用营销就能引发雪崩式传播。失去我们的支持，再加上糟糕的产品管理和创新乏力，会越来越难办。它正慢慢变得不再重要，最重要的是不再受技术社区尊重。某种程度上像 2000 年代的微软：收入还不差，但衰败迹象已现。可惜搜索领域仍看不到竞争，而且“google”仍是常用动词；微软似乎也满意 Bing 今天的位置。
mojuba查看英文原文
In addition, what's changed between 2017 and now is that back then Google was still admired by the tech people. "Google is evil" sounded ridiculous only a few years ago. I've been ridiculed by my colleagues and fellow engineers every time I said it. But I think it began to change with the introduction of AMP, a growing list of products discontinued for no apparent reason, failures of some of the new products often practically at launch, and finally the decline of quality and coverage of Search (more spam and more older sites dropping out). Google like no other tech giant always relied on the credibility among the tech people. Whether it's a new end-user product or a new programming language, it would go full avalanche with minimal marketing effort. Losing our support, on top of poor product management and inability to innovate will be more and more difficult for them to handle. Rolling out poorly designed and poorly targeted products is already a sign of a disconnect from reality. They are slowly becoming less and less relevant and most importantly, less respected by the tech community. In a way it's the Microsoft of the 2000s when the revenue figures still weren't bad but the signs of the decline were apparent. Yet unfortunately there's no competition to Search on the horizon and "google" is still a commonly used verb that will be very difficult to remove from the language. Microsoft seems to be happy with Bing's position today, which looks and feels like Google Search and maybe internally even mimics all the stupid and "evil" things Google Search does judging from their search results. I think it is time (if not a bit too late) to try to challenge Google Search with something new, a new perspective on how the information on the Internet can be indexed and searched. I bet a lot of people are constantly thinking about this, but the window of opportunity may be now while Google is putting a lot of their time and effort on ML/AI. I doubt you can compete with them by building a ML-based search, so it must be something else both in terms of technology and possibly even the UI. I don't know what the bottom line here is. Google is not dying any time soon, but the time to challenge them could be now.
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