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.
It’s not about you, it’s about your attitude towards the problem.
I read the entire document and several replies form beginning to end. I’ve also lived through several internet enshittifications. The point of the article is that while sure, that’s what it says on print, we’ve gotta learn to read between the lines, in particular when it comes to big corps like Google. They “say” on non-commital writing it doesn’t aim to be DRM, sure; that’s just soft doublespeak to try and appease the first wave of peer review. This was even called out on mastodon by one of the contributors to #28 where they even quoted the dogwhistle-style wording.
Frankly? We already know how to auto-translate this corpo speak, we’ve had decades of this (and a fair amount of from Google itself, too). They say this, they say that, as they have countless times before. “We are inventing some Doomsday parts here. Might be useful in case someone wants to do Doomsday Stuff that we have done before on the weekly but don’t officially approve of on record. Like, say, build the Doomsaday Device from the book ‘Don’t Invent the Doomsday Device’.” If you say this does not intend to lock the web, you are lying to yourself and to others. Whether by evil intent or by negligence, I leave that one up to you.
Fair and respectable points, but I don’t think we’re going to see eye to eye on this. It seems like we have different priorities when it comes to reporting on issues.
Honestly, I don’t disagree with you in thinking that the ulterior motive of the proposal is to undermine user freedom, user privacy, and/or ad blockers. Given Google’s history with Manifest V3 and using Chrome’s dominance to force vendors to adopt out-of-spec changes to web standards (passive scroll listeners come to mind), it would be burying my head in the sand to expect otherwise. My issue here is with portraying speculation and personal opinions as objective truths. Even if I agree that a locked down web is the most likely outcome, it’s just not a fact until someone working on that proposal outright says it was their intent, or it actually happens.
That doesn’t mean I think we should ignore the Doomsday device factory until it starts creating Doomsday devices, either, though. Google will never outright state that is their goal to cripple adblockers or control the web, and if it comes to happen, they’ll just rely on corporate weasel words to claim that they never promised they wouldn’t. And since we can’t trust corporations to be transparent and truthful, we shouldn’t be taking their promises or claims at face value. You’re absolutely right about that.
Going back to reporting about this kind of stuff, though: It’s not wrong for the original post to look past the surface-level claims, or for people to point out the corporate speak and lack of commitment. If there’s a factory labeled “Not Doomsday Devices” that pinkie promises they aren’t building Doomsday devices, I definitely would want someone to bring attention to it. I just don’t think the right way to do it is with a pitchfork-wielding mob of angry citizens who were told the factory is unquestionably building anthrax bioweapons, however.
We don’t gain much from readers being told things that will worry them and piss them off. I mean—sure—there’s now more awareness about the issue. But it’s not actually all that constructive if they aren’t critically engaging with the proposal. Google and web standards committees aren’t going to listen to a bunch of angry Lemmy users reiterating the same talking points over and over. They’re just going to treat it as a brigade and block further feedback until people forget about it (which they did).
If the topic was broached in a balanced and accurate way that refrained from making conclusions before providing readers with the facts, there would be less knee-jerk reactions. Maybe this is just me being naive, but I think it’s more likely that Google would be receptive to well-thought-out, respectful criticism as opposed to a significant quantity of hostile accusations.
With that being said, I will concede that I overcorrected for the original post too much. I should have written a response covering the issue in a way that I found more ideal, rather than trying to balance out the bias from the original post. My goal was to point out the ragebait title and add missing information so readers could come to their own informed conclusions, not defend Google.
Even if I agree that a locked down web is the most likely outcome, it’s just not a fact until someone working on that proposal outright says it was their intent, or it actually happens.
At which point it will be too late to decry it as such. You’ll already be locked out (or in).
Honestly, it seems we just naturally can’t see at the same eye leve, yeahl. You seem to be looking for dangers “down”, on newspaper reports on stuff already gone; I’m looking for dangers “up”, to the clouds in the sky and what meteorologists have to say about them.
