Genuinely asking here: is there a future where we end up with a version of the open web where everything isn’t paywalled or ID gated?
The article mentions the IETF is working on standards to deal with the proposed legislature and frustration of site operators. Almost any solution is going to be at the expense of user convenience and privacy. I see two interesting solutions mentioned here: micropayments, and proof-of-work. It seems unlikely the future of the open web will land on either. Both are inconvenient but at least could be done by anybody, potentially in a privacy preserving way. Using reputation based decentralized identity is another one (eg. proving you’re coming from a web domain or group), that seems more inconvenient for the platform because of false positives that could come through.
Meanwhile, a worse outcome is requiring attested hardware to get access to anything on the web. This already exists from the media companies pushing for controlled access to streaming. Netflix requires an hardware attested device to stream in 4K. Imagine a future where you now need one to read a New York Times article.
I can see some pushback against the alternatives (eg. digital ID), but if privacy preserving proofs are built in from the get go, it’s much better than not being able to see recipes because I have a rooted Android.
The article mentions the IETF is working on standards to deal with the proposed legislature and frustration of site operators. Almost any solution is going to be at the expense of user convenience and privacy. I see two interesting solutions mentioned here: micropayments, and proof-of-work. It seems unlikely the future of the open web will land on either. Both are inconvenient but at least could be done by anybody, potentially in a privacy preserving way. Using reputation based decentralized identity is another one (eg. proving you’re coming from a web domain or group), that seems more inconvenient for the platform because of false positives that could come through.
Meanwhile, a worse outcome is requiring attested hardware to get access to anything on the web. This already exists from the media companies pushing for controlled access to streaming. Netflix requires an hardware attested device to stream in 4K. Imagine a future where you now need one to read a New York Times article.
I can see some pushback against the alternatives (eg. digital ID), but if privacy preserving proofs are built in from the get go, it’s much better than not being able to see recipes because I have a rooted Android.