Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Is this because they are multi-billion dollar companies, or because they behave poorly, or because you haven't been properly compensated for your contribution to the content on the internet?

It is very likely that voting, or voting with your wallet, or probably any kind of activism, would have more impact than withdrawing from the (online) public life.




> because they are multi-billion dollar companies, or because they behave poorly

Both for me. They should be spanked for their behavior and lack of respect. I don’t want compensation though because I write open-source applications, but I want them to respect the license (which they don’t obviously).

Also I don’t understand why you feel anybody is withdrawing from the internet. It’s only a tarpit and I’m sure most of those who react don’t have ChatGPT subscriptions.


> because you haven't been properly compensated for your contribution to the content on the internet

Copyright is - like it or not - the way we regulate commercial intellectual "property". I can see different IP doctrines, and I don't necessarily defend the current one. It's not derived from real property rights, but rather in ensuring economic incentives for people to make stuff that otherwise wouldn't have been made, such as pharmaceuticals and hollywood movies, to simulate property rights. It's an imperfect solution which is there to ensure economic incentives and balance, and most importantly, it's the one we got.

But then, multi-billion dollar corporations feed your copyright protected (you thought) works straight into their supply chain, wouldn't you be pissed? It's no a small part either, but their models would be extremely nerfed without copyrighted data. Forget AI, forget tech, just look at it from a purely economic ecosystem perspective. Crying "fair use" during a highway robbery probably don't sit right with many, I hope.


what voting with your wallet are you envisioning?

I already don't pay for any ai services or touch any models. but Increasingly services that used to be helpful for me are throwing them in - YouTube premium has some sort of ai summarize things, etc. how do I signal that I don't want companies scraping content there?


You pose this as though there isn't a long and proud history of the Internet reacting with (sometimes unhinged) hostility to bad actors that goes ALLLLLL the way back to the BBS era.

One of the first persons that tried to scam users out of money by asking for help with his tuition was doxxed by his own ISP after the aforementioned ISP got so much hatemail it crashed their servers when his message was posted to every message board by a script which caused prolific BBS users to download it possibly several hundred times, paying for the privilege of each message.


I’m very confused as to what my $23.45 wallet has to do with what billion dollar Ai companies do.


> or because you haven't been properly compensated for your contribution to the content on the internet?

This comes across as snark, but I will assume you are well meaning. I have put code, guides, and videos on the internet for other people to consume for free in the hope that those people find that stuff useful.

I did not put stuff on the internet for it to be hoovered up and frankly stolen by massive AI companies to enrich themselves. If they are going to use my things in their commercial product than yes, they should be compensating me for that.

> Is this because they are multi-billion dollar companies, or because they behave poorly

It's also both of these.

> It is very likely that voting, or voting with your wallet, or probably any kind of activism, would have more impact than withdrawing from the (online) public life.

The only true control I have is withdrawing. I don't give these companies money, I don't live in a country that can meaningfully legislate against them, and I would consider withdrawing a form of activism.

I refuse to support these AI companies in any way (as long as they continue to be bad actors) and I have taken down all Youtube videos I've created, my personal website, and I have moved all my code to a self hosted, private Git service in order to deny them my work.


I live in the US, and I didn't have an option to vote against Big Tech. Both parties were deeply sycophantic toward that industry.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: