blog/content/posts/information-scarcity.md

---
title: "Information Scarcity"
date: 2024-03-01T21:55:39+01:00
---

I will not be picking battles between the extreme right or left side of the
political spectrum. In fact, I will merely try to report on the negative
impacts that capitalism has had on this astounding technology, referred to as
"the internet". I will also try to stay away from emotional writing, even if
such a technology lies very close to my heart. This does not mean I side with
left nor right. This means the common individual should focus more on the
problem at hand and come up with the best possible solution for that specific
scenario rather than just falling onto the extreme left or right wing.

This is especially true for developers.. 

We live in a world where money is power. That fact should not be ignored. The
creation of internet was an unexpected turn for the market. Companies realized
that it was a powerful tool to gain new customers with. And of course, how
could it not be? You are more exposed to the new customers' eyes and are
therefore, more likely to make more sales and profit, right? How could have
that possibly turned for the worse?

## Data Protection

The internet that we live in today is a mess. Service creation -> data
collection -> data breach. In that order. Service creation refers to any act of
writing or shipping software for the end-user (or the end-developer depending
on what you are creating). Data collection refers to the collection of
personally identifiable information without explicit or full consent from the
user (which, let's be real, is the case in 2024. Well, unless you are keen on
reading the 2000 word long privacy policy for every product that you use, which
can be changed by the company at any time of the day. Without your consent.
Have fun reading these vague essays). Data breach refers to the unescapable
information compromise that will happen sooner or later in the process of
shipping software to a wider audience. Production code is never 100% safe and
free from security vulnerabilities. Therefore, every time a maliscious user
discovers an unknown vulnerability, a potential data breach is about to take
place. The possible outcomes range from absolutely nothing to the total data
compromise for the users.

Sometimes I find myself questioning the intelect of the people who create
solutions to simple problems, yet feel this internal need to surround the
solution with software rubbish. Perhaps you have noticed that many websites
nowadays require account creation with a personally identifiable email address,
phone number, gender, address, and much more. Most of such websites deal with
problems whose core solution is SIMPLIFICATION, yet they go the other way
around, endlessly complicating their systems over and over again until they
break. And as you might imagine, the more code a product has, the more
vulnerable it is to security vulnerabilities. That is the number one lesson
every developer should be aware of before starting out on their problem solving
journey.

Not to mention the pace at which the developers are forced to work. Data
protection is most definitely not the top priority for a company as much as the
process for profiting is. Developers are constantly pounded and pounded to
create software as quickly as possible. Limiting them with impossibly short
deadlines and stressing them out. This most definitely leads to security bugs.

## Rise for the Money

Do we really wish for such use of such a powerful technology? A technology that
has the potential to transmit GIGABYTES of information every second, yet is
limited by the SOS (shiny object syndrome) of humans and their will to make
money by wasting processing power on advertisements, distract the end-users
with useless popups, make them fill forms, and create accounts to spam them
with new deals and make even more money? All of that while also collecting in
bulk all sorts of personally identifiable information? Just to give them the
content that they needed to inform themselves? Just to accomplish the one basic
idea that internet, this stunning technology, promised to bring to the table
since it ever came to existence? How did that happen? How did usage of such a
technology further push drawbacks against it?

The approach that the first internet took, was by far the best at fulfilling
what we define as "internet" - a place for people to find and share
information, not necessarily limited by race, background, actions, political
standpoint, or any other form of bias. Before the companies realized the
potential of this technology and invaded it with bloat, internet was a place
for individuals to share information, get to know other people, and create
something personal. Something private. Something that was a digital footprint
of the community. That footprint represented people and their will to
collaborate and share information.

However, as companies and governments got more involved, they started throwing
more and more capitalistic structures into it, which resulted in a slow death
of the initial goal and reason behind this technology. 

This can be widely shown from the fact, that blogs, BLOGS, a once subjective
and private online expression of somebody's persona or presence, are now
spitting blood to be the top tier result on Google's search page. That
evidently puts money and power before community, collaboration, and especially,
*content quality*. Which is quite self-evident after you notice the vagueness
that most articles have online. The page fills you with popups, advertisements,
forms to fill, and required login pages, just to access content that is
precooked by artificial intelligence, is extremely vague, and potentially
misleading. Yes, it is indeed, a triumph for information scarcity that is
taking place on one of the biggest highways of information we currently
possess. And it does indeed, show one of many negative traits of capitalism
after you throw it into a free cyber space. 

## Clapback

Formerly, to escape this hellish use of the internet, you had to stop using the
internet. Now, there is a new world that digital rights activists and freedom
seekers are creating. It is a strong and willingful movement that has been
standing its ground for many decades. It was in September 1983 that Richard
Stallman launched the GNU project, whose goal was to create a fully functioning
operating system and a toolset to work with data on that system. Today, a
combination of the GNU project and Linux kernel (the core of an operating
system) is known as GNU/Linux and it is a perfect alternative to the
proprietary systems like OS X or MS Windows that we do not deserve nor need.