@prologic@twtxt.net I don’t have the best experience with WebKit, at least not with WebKit2GTK on Linux. MacOS might be different, I don’t know. But on Linux, WebKit2GTK is always lightyears behind Firefox/Chromium in terms of … everything. That’s my experience with running WebKit2GTK browsers for well over a decade (luakit, uzbl, dwb, whatever). I even made my own browser at some point, but I recently basically decided to give up on it and go back to Firefox.

WebKit is an admirable project, but they simply cannot compete with the sheer man power of Firefox/Chromium. There are so many standards and new features all the time, the WebKit team can’t keep up with that. A funny/good/sad example is imgur.com: For a while, it’s completely unusable; then WebKit catches up and it works more or less (probably pretty slow, though); then imgur changes stuff, uses new browser features and, boom, your WebKit browser doesn’t work again; and this cycle repeats over and over.

All this makes me pretty sad (once more 😅). Here’s the thing: WebKit is super easy to use in a GTK program. It’s just another GTK widget. It’s totally possible for a single person to write a browser that he/she likes using WebKit2GTK as a rendering engine. If you could actually use the web with WebKit, we could see a ton of different browsers out there, all serving different needs and purposes.

(I tried building a browser around the Firefox engine or the Chromium engine, but this is muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch more involved than WebKit2GTK. I quickly gave up on that. Sure thing, Firefox/Chromium don’t want you to just use their rendering engine …)

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci hmm, you can pay for ad-less pages and services. If you are browsing for free, I’d expect to see some ads.

Previously we payed for magazines and still received ads. Now we have ‘free’ services exchanging our data and attention for content. We can read more on how we reached there in “Information doesn’t want to be free”

So, my shortcut has been, pay for the services, use adblockers for everything else.

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci connecting my previous twts together, if behind Chrome there is Google, willing to make an Operating System for the Web and Mobiles, they’ll have incentives to do it so, pushing a lot of money/investment to the massive users. (And an investment has an expected return on investment)

What could we do against those huge corporations? That’s the interesting and hard question

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci well, I remember Reader’s Digest throwing whole catalogues to my Grandpa along with the magazines he had already paid for.
They had his address and credit card info with promotions like “only send this message and you’ll receive the next book”.
And for Flashing videos, we could go to Public TV broadcasting.

But I get your point, and I add. “If the ‘product’ is free, you are the product”. And those companies are trying to productize you. Manifest V3 is a clear example of the Status quo, disguised as “for your convenience”.

The real point is not being part of that “Society of complaining” but being key to actually change what bothers us.

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci Talking about government is a rabbit hole. What I don’t like is talking about it like the magic silver bullet that will solve all the problems and become a religion and ideology…

And it’s not only a matter of experimental post-capitalism but more about pragmatical solutions. We have about 30-60 years more here. What are we gonna do in those years? As individuals, as families, as communities, as nations, as a whole planet?

@prologic@twtxt.net yep, that’s part of the game of power. Why would you like to join that corrupt environment if wouldn’t it be to take advantage of the system?

And the Politicians are a public image for 4 or 6 years, who’s behind them? Who’s paying the politicians to do the dirty work?

So, this is the way humans have lived for many, many years. There are going to be rebels like you and me, trying to ‘fix’ things (pushing to our aspirations), but there is always going to be that fight, IMO

It’s not an easy conversation, I have to say. Even writing this is controversial. The easiest path would be saying “Yeah, it sucks bro”, and not doing anything.

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci I know, tell us about the post-capitalist alternative that our generation could experience. How is it?

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci nop, that’s not what I meant. And I don’t like unproductive ways to think or to talk, so that is something you assumed.
(Also I don’t want to be obsessed with productivity, but that’s another discussion)

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci I don’t disagree, in fact, families are my favourite community right now (perhaps I’m lucky for that).

That said, it has been difficult to work with my family. When you involve money into a family problems appear.

There is even this meme

So, it’s not a matter of Capitalism, but of greediness and money. (And just to check, capitalism is not about money, money is not the evilness here, but how we work for it)

So, Money + Families is a difficult combination. Check this research on psychology applied to money and free stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational#Being_Paid_vs._A_Friendly_Favor

Yes, we could try living in communes, having co-ops, and other experimental post-capitalist alternatives. I don’t know what could happen.

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci On gifts, I guess our mind has a problem with the Free concept, (as in freedom, as in culture, as in something you can steal).

Last year I found an appealing reading on the topic of Open Software as a gift. I recommend to take a look to it
https://apenwarr.ca/log/20211229