←back to thread

MDN Plus

(hacks.mozilla.org)
630 points sendilkumarn | 5 comments | 24 Mar 22 16:46 UTC | HN request time: 0.929s | source
Show context
chatmasta ◴[24 Mar 22 21:07 UTC] No.30795352[source]▶
Fundamentally, maintaining MDN is costly because of the rate of instability in rapidly changing browser APIs. Those APIs change quickly and inconsistently because they’re managed by a centralized cabal of a few corporations with a combined multiple trillions of dollars in market cap. And yet, somehow it’s Mozilla, the browser vendor with the least money, that ends up saddling the cost for MDN. Why is this?

In general, Big Tech companies should pay more into open source, and especially into the standards committees they manipulate to their own ends. Perhaps there should be some kind of NATO-like membership fee based on percent of global revenue. It would be amusing to see w3c tax these corporations more efficiently than any government has been able to.

replies(11): >>30795393 #>>30795538 #>>30795578 #>>30795585 #>>30795679 #>>30795999 #>>30799159 #>>30799896 #>>30800980 #>>30803022 #>>30804578 #
mminer237 ◴[24 Mar 22 21:26 UTC] No.30795538[source]▶
If W3C or WHATWG try to "tax" Google, Apple, or Microsoft to participate, they will lose all significance the next day as big tech starts their own exclusive group to define web standards. They completely control all influential browsers. Whoever makes the implementations gets to choose the standards.

Unlike governments, standards committees have zero enforcement power.

replies(1): >>30795883 #
chatmasta ◴[24 Mar 22 22:00 UTC] No.30795883[source]▶
So put the governments in charge of the standards committees.

I would personally never advocate for that, but it’s a potential solution.

replies(2): >>30796626 #>>30799169 #
1. dikaio ◴[24 Mar 22 23:08 UTC] No.30796626[source]▶
Putting the government in charge of anything is almost never the right way forward IMHO
replies(2): >>30797286 #>>30801780 #
2. notriddle ◴[25 Mar 22 00:18 UTC] No.30797286[source]▶
The short version: There is no particular reason to expect governments to be bad at this. Sure, they won't be able to roll out new features as quickly, but there's a lot of private-sector BS and necessary evils that they won't roll out, either, because they won't have to. The state has been in the business of establishing standards since the dawn of time for good reasons. Tech companies are incentivized to constantly release new "U"SB standards, for example, all of which improve on their predecessors in some way, but are a lot less Universal as a result. At the other end of the adapter, on your wall outlet, how many new standards for that plug have been released in the same time frame? Sure, the outlet could be a lot better, but we gain a lot in exchange by just not having the churn.

The long version: https://web.archive.org/web/20200222053906/http://slatestarc...

replies(1): >>30799461 #
3. drstewart ◴[25 Mar 22 07:16 UTC] No.30799461[source]▶
>The short version: There is no particular reason to expect governments to be bad at this.

This. Look at the real NATO, when they band together and tell an adversary (Russia) not to break standards (declare war), they listen. A web NATO would be just as effective. You are right.

replies(1): >>30806772 #
4. Sakos ◴[25 Mar 22 13:18 UTC] No.30801780[source]▶
If companies are unwilling to do something that's in the best interests of their users and customers, then government is the only way to force them in a more socially beneficial way. Government absolutely has its place. Self-regulation only works as long as companies are actually willing to do what's necessary.
5. notriddle ◴[25 Mar 22 20:33 UTC] No.30806772{3}[source]▶
You think private industry can do better? I don't.

If the (admittedly biased) reports I've heard are any indication, Putin has surrounded himself with yes-men, causing him to overestimate his chances of winning. In economic terms, this makes the war "stupid," because it lowers the utility for both sides of the conflict. Economic solutions, which work by trying to align the interests of the many with the interests of the individual, don't work on stupid people, who cannot be relied upon to act in their own self-interest.

Expecting the government to succeed in literally everything they try, even in the presence of unpredictable stupid people, is pretty unrealistic. I just want to know if they'll do better than private industry.