While I'd definitely want a huge win for privacy, the current (that we need to avoid) suite of tools is extremely convenient (especially the collab/social ones) and are affected by network effect.
We should be aiming for a solution that is private while also convenient as the centralized ones. Otherwise even if we (HN audience) switch, many others won't and only a niche set of users will be using the private technologies and services.
This is a problem. Even the HN audience seems to struggle greatly in choosing non-proprietary and privacy friendly solutions. While the amount of privacy advocates are certainly greater here than in many other places, the general sentiment I get from reading a lot of these threads is that "If you have nothing to fear, you have nothing to hide".
Why do you think that is? Certainly a community like this shouldn't be bothered by the slight obstacles you would be challenged with.
> the general sentiment I get from reading a lot of these threads is that "If you have nothing to fear, you have nothing to hide".
> Why do you think that is?
I think it's because a lot of people think that there's nothing that can be done to change the situation, and so they adopt that mental stance in order to be OK with it. Whether or not that stance is correct isn't important. It's an emotional "safe space".
We should be aiming for a solution that is private while also convenient as the centralized ones. Otherwise even if we (HN audience) switch, many others won't and only a niche set of users will be using the private technologies and services.