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Google engineers want to introduce DRMs for web pages, making ad-blocking near-impossible in the browser

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.

perestroika ,

If they overcome / disable ad blocking, they will lose browser market share - and people don't design websites for marginal browsers with exotic features.

Skates ,

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

fucking shills

Arsonistic ,

I'm afraid that reporting him to another big corporation(Microsoft owns Github) is rather futile.

moonmeow ,

You're right, why are we allowing the internet be be monopolized like this? it is futile because we're basically giving up all control and forming a dependence on these few select tech companies.

x4740N ,
@x4740N@lemmy.world avatar

Fediverse is the opposition to that

Next steps are getting rid capitalism

RobertOwnageJunior ,

If you think that's a realistic next step, you're crazy.

jflorez ,

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

mrmanager ,
@mrmanager@lemmy.today avatar

And we saw this was going to happen at least 5 years ago. But since the majority don't care, we get what we deserve I guess.

Let's just hope this doesn't go through.

Sharkwellington ,

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

archchan ,
@archchan@lemmy.ml avatar

Always have been, and they're in it for the long game. They've already acquired a stupid amount of control on the web and web standards with everything from Chromium to Youtube, not to mention it doesn't help that they basically control the world's most popular mobile OS. Google wants it all if we let them.

narc0tic_bird ,
@narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee avatar

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.

fearout ,
@fearout@kbin.social avatar

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 ,
@Cube6392@beehaw.org avatar

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
Asafum ,

Duckduckgo is a wrapper for bing? No wonder it sucks... I want to like it, but the results are usually pretty bad in comparison to Google. Takes me much longer to find what I'm looking for with DDG. :/

westyvw ,

I have exactly the opposite experience. Google has gone to shit, and duckduckgo gets me there faster 90% of the time. Plus the results are short and concise, or immediately helpful.

The SEO of the internet has really fucked googles algorithm. At least with duckduckgo I can end the search with !g to switch to google if I need a second go, but you cannot !d in google.

4am ,
@4am@lemmy.world avatar

Elon Musk wanted to drive Twitter into the dirt once he was forced to buy it. Criticism, jet tracking, rejection of fascist-adjacent opinions that are “logical” but only if you’re a heartless engineering robot.

His hubris forced him into buying it, but once he had to, he might as well destroy it. How else do you think he got the Saudis in on it for another billion?

I laughed about this theory at first, just memeing it like “ha could you even imagine?” But every single day it seems more and more like he does the worst thing possible to “monetize” and then gripes about it like the only reason his brilliance isn’t working is because big mean liberal woke mind virus society is trying to do cancel culture because they’re just jealous he’s rich.

InverseParallax ,

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 ,

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 ,

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.

ddnomad ,
@ddnomad@infosec.pub avatar

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 ,
@i_love_FFT@lemmy.ml avatar

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

dontblink ,
@dontblink@feddit.it avatar

But a small minority of really determined people is enough to change the world 🙌

I love to see how people nowadays find easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.. That's how they've been brainwashing us till now.

Dasus ,

What the fuck is happening to the internet recently?

Capitalism is spreading further into the dark reaches of the internet.

TWeaK ,

Inb4 you can only browse the internet with Chromium.

BlackEco OP ,
@BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com avatar

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 ,
@sab@kbin.social avatar

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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