The internet is still out there by @gavin57
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The internet is still out there by @gavin57
"The trouble with Google and search engines which also have an interest in selling their customers is, search results are often skewed towards pages that are good for Google and not for the person doing the searching.
This is why nearly every YouTube video is about a product, or it is trying to sell you on a lifestyle that will require a whole host of products."
"There is another way…"
https://reedandpickup.com/2026/03/27/the-internet-is-still-out.html
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The internet is still out there by @gavin57
"The trouble with Google and search engines which also have an interest in selling their customers is, search results are often skewed towards pages that are good for Google and not for the person doing the searching.
This is why nearly every YouTube video is about a product, or it is trying to sell you on a lifestyle that will require a whole host of products."
"There is another way…"
https://reedandpickup.com/2026/03/27/the-internet-is-still-out.html
@lislegaard @gavin57 I quite like the sentiment, and paying for content explicitly rather than by being harvested is a great idea, although I worry for people who can't pay because they're struggling to pay rent or for medication.
I'm going to look at a couple of the services Gavin mentioned.
I was bothered by the presentation of Mastodon as being a social network, and I fear we flirt with lock-in if we lose sight of Mastodon being just one of many Fediverse servers.
I'm puzzled by the SSO options listed at the bottom to allow replies. What's that about? Is this a Fediverse standard? Is it unique to Mastodon and the other services listed? This is my first time encountering that.
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The internet is still out there by @gavin57
"The trouble with Google and search engines which also have an interest in selling their customers is, search results are often skewed towards pages that are good for Google and not for the person doing the searching.
This is why nearly every YouTube video is about a product, or it is trying to sell you on a lifestyle that will require a whole host of products."
"There is another way…"
https://reedandpickup.com/2026/03/27/the-internet-is-still-out.html
That is actually not my experience. YouTube mostly shows me videos I'm actually interested in, and most of them aren't about products.
Or, well, technically they are, but those products are computers that were on the market 40 years ago.
There are a lot of ads fitting your description, though.
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@lislegaard @gavin57 I quite like the sentiment, and paying for content explicitly rather than by being harvested is a great idea, although I worry for people who can't pay because they're struggling to pay rent or for medication.
I'm going to look at a couple of the services Gavin mentioned.
I was bothered by the presentation of Mastodon as being a social network, and I fear we flirt with lock-in if we lose sight of Mastodon being just one of many Fediverse servers.
I'm puzzled by the SSO options listed at the bottom to allow replies. What's that about? Is this a Fediverse standard? Is it unique to Mastodon and the other services listed? This is my first time encountering that.
@mason @lislegaard Hi Mason, the SSO things are a feature of Micro.blog, which is a federated blogging platform. I don’t much control over that.
As for the cost thing, it’s easy to overlook how expensive the status quo is. We put up with advertising or a subscription when we can entertain ourselves with used or borrowed DVDs, books etc.
I think the important thing is finding a model that works for our individual circumstances and puts us in control again.
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That is actually not my experience. YouTube mostly shows me videos I'm actually interested in, and most of them aren't about products.
Or, well, technically they are, but those products are computers that were on the market 40 years ago.
There are a lot of ads fitting your description, though.
@argv_minus_one @lislegaard Hi, to quote…um, myself:
“Yes, if you look hard enough there are video essays about old products, or about subjects that go deeper than a swipe of your credit card, but they generally don’t do very well.”
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The internet is still out there by @gavin57
"The trouble with Google and search engines which also have an interest in selling their customers is, search results are often skewed towards pages that are good for Google and not for the person doing the searching.
This is why nearly every YouTube video is about a product, or it is trying to sell you on a lifestyle that will require a whole host of products."
"There is another way…"
https://reedandpickup.com/2026/03/27/the-internet-is-still-out.html
@lislegaard Hadn't heard about Uruky before. Will try it out. @gavin57
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@mason @lislegaard Hi Mason, the SSO things are a feature of Micro.blog, which is a federated blogging platform. I don’t much control over that.
As for the cost thing, it’s easy to overlook how expensive the status quo is. We put up with advertising or a subscription when we can entertain ourselves with used or borrowed DVDs, books etc.
I think the important thing is finding a model that works for our individual circumstances and puts us in control again.
@gavin57 @lislegaard Gavin, agreed. It makes me wonder if we can have things either run by community or (proper) non-profit organizations to replace more surveillance-capitalist services. We can together do things that we can't do alone.
About the SSO, it can't just be a feature of your blog software. It at least needs the cooperation of the services on the other side. My quick look for this in Mastodon showed an open PR and an empty docs page, hence my curiosity.
I need to put my money where my mouth is and spin up a Friendica server again. I had one before I ran this server. (And briefly Pleroma before that.)
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@gavin57 @lislegaard Gavin, agreed. It makes me wonder if we can have things either run by community or (proper) non-profit organizations to replace more surveillance-capitalist services. We can together do things that we can't do alone.
About the SSO, it can't just be a feature of your blog software. It at least needs the cooperation of the services on the other side. My quick look for this in Mastodon showed an open PR and an empty docs page, hence my curiosity.
I need to put my money where my mouth is and spin up a Friendica server again. I had one before I ran this server. (And briefly Pleroma before that.)
@mason @lislegaard Hey Mason, this forum post explains it far better than I can: https://help.micro.blog/t/bluesky-cross-posting-and-mentions/1702
Micro.blog allows you to cross-post to a number of platforms, as well as get replies from Mastodon, Bluesky etc. My blog even has its own handle on here @reedandpickup --it's a neat service.
On the replacement of surveillance-capitalist services, I think the fediverse is the best place to discover them. There seems to be a real hunger for them here.
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@mason @lislegaard Hey Mason, this forum post explains it far better than I can: https://help.micro.blog/t/bluesky-cross-posting-and-mentions/1702
Micro.blog allows you to cross-post to a number of platforms, as well as get replies from Mastodon, Bluesky etc. My blog even has its own handle on here @reedandpickup --it's a neat service.
On the replacement of surveillance-capitalist services, I think the fediverse is the best place to discover them. There seems to be a real hunger for them here.
@gavin57 @lislegaard @reedandpickup Oh, neat. Thank you.
