Comment by bravenous | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bravenous | Hacker News Reader

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Yes web was decentralised till it became centralised with big tech gatekeepers. AMZN makes more money from sellers fee than AWS now. Thus killing small businesses - the lifeblood of most economies. Link below.

It is time to get rid of gatekeepers, toll collector and have control of our data & communities. Web 3 is a way do that and will take about a decade as the infra builds out. So it certainly is BS for big tech landlords and their retinue.

Crypto, is part of that plan for payments. Certainly there are scams but no different than scams today - where we are treated like lab rats subjected to data stimuli, our data stolen without permission or compensation.

Sure I will take the Internet of 90s any day over today’s web with its surveillance capitalism. But that boat passed long back, as will the current one. Web3 allows users to be in control of the network(s) or communities collectively. That certainly is good for most folks.

https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/news/amazon-has-a-spe...

What were you able to do in the 90s that you cannot do now on the web? I do not subscribe to this mumbo jumbo about gatekeepers, data stealing, centralised internet etc. While true, you are literally free to use any service you like, nobody is forcing you to spend your dollar here or there.

Good products are usually driven by commercial entities. I would love to use something else besides Android or iOS that is not backed by a commercial giant, which WORKS, is not full of spyware and has a healthy ecosystem but nobody is making one, nobody is able to put 2 and 2 together there.

Are the products you buy online going to physically move differently when you use the "decentralised" internet? Are the small businesses going to revive because of that? AMZN did not kill them, the consumer did. It's the consumer that spends the dollar and dictates such outcomes - none of which are going to be fixed by Web 3. For me, the centralisation that amazon provides is a feature, not a bug. You will not kill AMZN until you understand why it works the way it does and start competing with them. Don't tell me it can't be done because AliExpress is giggling in the background.

I have a few friends doing a fortune on AMZN without even seeing the products they sell (FBA). Adapt or die, it's just nature.

You can’t run a mailserver from your home without significant issues.

Oh yes you can, without much technical difficulties, easier than you would in the 90s actually [1][2]. Does it work as you would expect? Probably not because gmail and other ones are blocking/ghosting you (I suspect this to be the issue right?). Nobody is forcing people towards gmail though. I am one that is scared of being locked out by giants like Google and I switched everything (website logins + mail) to something else (my domain email, managed by protonmail). The transition was seamless and I control my mail with my domain right now. I can migrate at will any time I want.

Mailservers not running from your house is not really all that bad...for the rest of us. Imagine all the spammy software that your friends and relatives install on their computer being able to spin one and blast campaigns.

[1] https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver [2] https://mailu.io/1.8/

Amazon has been fantastic for my small business.

The fees aren't too crippling (around 15% of revenue) and FBA is an absolute Godsend for anyone based outside of the US trying to crack into that market (similar for Europe).

I could not thank Mr. Bezos more for the opportunities Amazon has given my family. The income from FBA was a major factor in my decision to quit my job back in 2020, and because of that my daughter can be with her daddy every single day.

The problem with Amazon is that a) for every story like yours, there are 5 that say the opposite, and b) it's all enabled by abusive labour practices.

I don't disagree with b, but I'd suspect there are many, many more people like me in the silent majority.

You just don't hear about it much because it's a boring news story.

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