I’m happy to see this being noticed more and more. Google wants to destroy the open web, so it’s a lot at stake.

Google basically says “Trust us”. What a joke.

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180 points

Yes exactly. This is what worries me the most since I also run only Linux, and I can’t imagine even being interested in computers anymore if Linux is not allowed on the web. That would be horrific.

It’s 100% critically dangerous and must be stopped.

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124 points
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83 points

They’ve needed to be broken up for over a decade now, but that’d require the government to actually enforce antitrust/monopoly laws

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32 points

The FTC is apparently going after Amazon, so I’d be curious to see how that goes

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8 points

It’s crazy to think that a little over two decades ago, Microsoft was almost broken up for selling an operating system and a web browser. How monopolistic!

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35 points

What really disturbs me is how the recent tech shenanigans have been a long time coming; seems the internet we have come to know for the last 15 years only existed thanks to the ridiculous interest rates post 2008.

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13 points

I’d be interested to hear more of your theory on this:

the internet we have come to know for the last 15 years only existed thanks to the ridiculous interest rates post 2008.

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49 points

I think this article from the Verge explains it pretty well.

tl;dr:

  • The Fed kept interest rates low from 2008 to 2021. Low interest rates made it easier to borrow money and meant that debt-backed investments like bonds had a low return, so investors favored stocks for a better yield on their investment.
  • This meant tech companies could borrow a ton of money at low interest rates and raise a ton of money from investors through stock sales, allowing them to build services that weren’t profitable in order to grow as rapidly as possible. This basically defined the internet as we know it today - big companies offering free/cheap services with minimal restrictions. Companies could afford to charge low fees and look the other way on things like ad blockers.
  • However, now that interest rates are going up, borrowing is much more expensive and investors are less motivated to buy stock, so all that easy money has dried up. Companies are having to raise revenue by increasing prices, adding more ads, blocking ad blockers, etc.
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19 points

Online services cost a lot of money. People don’t realize how much because VCs and corpos w/ deep pockets have been subsidizing most major services for a long time. Now that the free money period is more-or-less over, these services need to start paying the bills with their users - commence enshittification

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3 points
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I’m just a layman, but it has been nagging my brain how all these big tech companies seem to be turning shitty all at once. I’ve seen others propose similar explanations, but the basic idea is that the historically low rates got them addicted to “free” capital. Now the faucet has been slammed shut and they have to make up for the shortfall.

Also, it’s not just big tech at fault. The massive worldwide inflation we’ve experienced happened for the same reason - shortsighted greed.

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0 points

Linux would still be allowed, but you would have to use Chromium.

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