Exploring Software: How Did I Become a Product?
A video reminder sets off the author on a train of thought about various aspects of his life online. He ponders over matters like email, chat, social networking, content and what the future holds for us, considering that the data we generate is owned by v
“The ISPs let me down.”
Recently, YouTube reminded me to again watch the video ‘The Terrifying Cost of ‘Free’ Websites’ at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=5pFX2P7JLwA&t=315s. This was just after I had been tempted to click on a link on Facebook. I noticed that it was sponsored and I was having a tough time finalising a short vacation. I did not need yet another source of information to make my task even harder. Of course, the question of how Facebook knew which link to show me, did cross my mind.
On email
I had signed up for Gmail in the early days but it was not supposed to be my primary email. I was satisfied with the email of the dial-up ISP and preferred to keep my mails on my desktop. Then, the ISP changed my email address. It was a pain, but I managed. Then I got a broadband connection and the ISP gave me a new email ID. I could not keep the old one, unless I retained the dial-up connection as well! The promise of Google to not ever change my email ID was the push I needed to sign up for it.
Just as mobile number porting has been made mandatory, there should be portability of email IDs too. I should be able to use the email ID that was offered by my ISP for ever.
There are enough open source options available to the ISPs to enable this. And the savings in the cost of data traffic routed through the ISP’s network to a third party may be more than the operating cost of such email portability.
On chat
I am locked out of Whats App messages. My wife tells me the significant messages. Three products, Google Hangouts, Facebook and Skype are more than I can handle. This is just not what was expected. Instant messaging protocols like XMPP were the obvious answer. Google Chat even supported XMPP and extended it with Jingle for multimedia support. I used Pidgin with Google Chat. But the ISPs did not offer an instant messaging service. Skype and Google Hangouts have become the default options. If one of them has a problem, try the other. Apple users may prefer Facetime when communicating with other Apple users (imagine the absurdity of accepting the terms of being able to use your phone to talk to only those who have the same brand of phone as yourself).
Again, open source options would have enabled ISPs to offer this service at minimal cost. I see no reason why XMPP or similar options cannot dominate the world. India itself is a large enough market if the regulator forces ISPs to offer such a service!
On social networking or whatever happened to Diaspora
The problem with a social networking application is that it is useless unless the product has enough users. It cannot succeed unless enough people promote and push it. So far, the history of social networks has been that they grow until the new generation of people join an alternate. Will Facebook be pushed away? I am more concerned with what we ought to have and how we can get it.
One promising application was Diaspora. Fortunately, it is still around and the beauty is that it is inherently distributed, and data is owned by the user and not the application provider. Ideally, the application should be replaced by protocols for sharing information so that multiple interoperable social networking applications are available.
Meanwhile, I hope an enlightened ISP starts offering a Diaspora server for its users. If enough do so, Facebook may finally see some competition!
On content
I installed an ad-blocker after being troubled by a number of sites with noisy multimedia ads over which I had no control.
A number of newspapers made me aware that the adblocker was installed. Some just insisted that I allow ads from their site and some offered subscription options. However,
my reading of content is determined more by the content itself and who wrote it, rather than who published it. For routine news, the source may not matter. I may reconfirm surprising news by checking on multiple sources. For opinion articles, I am more likely to be influenced by the person who is writing rather than the paper. Subscribing to numerous news outlets is not an acceptable or realistic option.
We may want to or may even be forced to pay for news, like the charges for radio we paid many years ago. The trouble is, whom to pay and how much. Donations work to an extent, but they probably benefit only the well known sites like Wikipedia or Wiki Leaks.
The following is more a wish for what seems plausible. A part of the ISP’s charges could be used for paying the content providers who do not carry ads. An option could be that, upon reading an article, a user could click on the Pay button. The users’ contributions could be distributed among the content providers they choose to pay.
As individuals, we are helpless in avoiding giving data to advertisers. So, if I consider all the above scenarios, I believe that a major factor in our relying on ‘free’ sites has been because the ISPs just did not live up to expectations — either by not offering us options or like AOL or trying to restrict what we can do.
Internet based applications have been developing very rapidly. But there is still time to take control of our lives online. If we do not wish all our data to be owned by just a few companies, mostly in the US, our ISPs and regulators need to take the initiative and create an environment in which competition grows. It matters little if you can choose between ISPs, if the data destination options remain the same few. In the long run, it is just too risky to trust and rely on even well-meaning corporates and governments. What will they do with your data when their income levels drop to less than they expected?