112 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
112 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Information Scarcity"
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date: 2024-03-01T21:55:39+01:00
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---
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I will not be picking battles between the extreme right or left side of the
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political spectrum. In fact, I will merely try to report on the negative
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impacts that capitalism has had on this astounding technology, referred to as
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"the internet". I will also try to stay away from emotional writing, even if
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such a technology lies very close to my heart. This does not mean I side with
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left nor right. This means the common individual should focus more on the
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problem at hand and come up with the best possible solution for that specific
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scenario rather than just falling onto the extreme left or right wing.
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This is especially true for developers..
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We live in a world where money is power. That fact should not be ignored. The
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creation of internet was an unexpected turn for the market. Companies realized
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that it was a powerful tool to gain new customers with. And of course, how
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could it not be? You are more exposed to the new customers' eyes and are
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therefore, more likely to make more sales and profit, right? How could have
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that possibly turned for the worse?
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## Data Protection
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The internet that we live in today is a mess. Service creation -> data
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collection -> data breach. In that order. Service creation refers to any act of
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writing or shipping software for the end-user (or the end-developer depending
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on what you are creating). Data collection refers to the collection of
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personally identifiable information without explicit or full consent from the
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user (which, let's be real, is the case in 2024. Well, unless you are keen on
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reading the 2000 word long privacy policy for every product that you use, which
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can be changed by the company at any time of the day. Without your consent.
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Have fun reading these vague essays). Data breach refers to the unescapable
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information compromise that will happen sooner or later in the process of
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shipping software to a wider audience. Production code is never 100% safe and
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free from security vulnerabilities. Therefore, every time a maliscious user
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discovers an unknown vulnerability, a potential data breach is about to take
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place. The possible outcomes range from absolutely nothing to the total data
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compromise for the users.
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Sometimes I find myself questioning the intelect of the people who create
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solutions to simple problems, yet feel this internal need to surround the
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solution with software rubbish. Perhaps you have noticed that many websites
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nowadays require account creation with a personally identifiable email address,
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phone number, gender, address, and much more. Most of such websites deal with
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problems whose core solution is SIMPLIFICATION, yet they go the other way
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around, endlessly complicating their systems over and over again until they
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break. And as you might imagine, the more code a product has, the more
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vulnerable it is to security vulnerabilities. That is the number one lesson
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every developer should be aware of before starting out on their problem solving
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journey.
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Not to mention the pace at which the developers are forced to work. Data
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protection is most definitely not the top priority for a company as much as the
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process for profiting is. Developers are constantly pounded and pounded to
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create software as quickly as possible. Limiting them with impossibly short
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deadlines and stressing them out. This most definitely leads to security bugs.
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## Rise for the Money
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Do we really wish for such use of such a powerful technology? A technology that
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has the potential to transmit GIGABYTES of information every second, yet is
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limited by the SOS (shiny object syndrome) of humans and their will to make
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money by wasting processing power on advertisements, distract the end-users
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with useless popups, make them fill forms, and create accounts to spam them
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with new deals and make even more money? All of that while also collecting in
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bulk all sorts of personally identifiable information? Just to give them the
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content that they needed to inform themselves? Just to accomplish the one basic
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idea that internet, this stunning technology, promised to bring to the table
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since it ever came to existence? How did that happen? How did usage of such a
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technology further push drawbacks against it?
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The approach that the first internet took, was by far the best at fulfilling
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what we define as "internet" - a place for people to find and share
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information, not necessarily limited by race, background, actions, political
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standpoint, or any other form of bias. Before the companies realized the
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potential of this technology and invaded it with bloat, internet was a place
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for individuals to share information, get to know other people, and create
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something personal. Something private. Something that was a digital footprint
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of the community. That footprint represented people and their will to
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collaborate and share information.
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However, as companies and governments got more involved, they started throwing
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more and more capitalistic structures into it, which resulted in a slow death
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of the initial goal and reason behind this technology.
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This can be widely shown from the fact, that blogs, BLOGS, a once subjective
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and private online expression of somebody's persona or presence, are now
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spitting blood to be the top tier result on Google's search page. That
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evidently puts money and power before community, collaboration, and especially,
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*content quality*. Which is quite self-evident after you notice the vagueness
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that most articles have online. The page fills you with popups, advertisements,
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forms to fill, and required login pages, just to access content that is
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precooked by artificial intelligence, is extremely vague, and potentially
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misleading. Yes, it is indeed, a triumph for information scarcity that is
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taking place on one of the biggest highways of information we currently
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possess. And it does indeed, show one of many negative traits of capitalism
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after you throw it into a free cyber space.
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## Clapback
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Formerly, to escape this hellish use of the internet, you had to stop using the
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internet. Now, there is a new world that digital rights activists and freedom
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seekers are creating. It is a strong and willingful movement that has been
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standing its ground for many decades. It was in September 1983 that Richard
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Stallman launched the GNU project, whose goal was to create a fully functioning
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operating system and a toolset to work with data on that system. Today, a
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combination of the GNU project and Linux kernel (the core of an operating
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system) is known as GNU/Linux and it is a perfect alternative to the
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proprietary systems like OS X or MS Windows that we do not deserve nor need.
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