Techdirt Podcast Episode 86: Have Platforms Killed The Open Internet By Replacing Protocols?

from the open,-close dept

Tue, Aug 16th 2016 1:00pm — Leigh Beadon

The internet is built on a solid foundation of open protocols: TCP/IP, HTTP and SMTP especially, plus more modern entrants like RSS and BitTorrent. But even those aren't so new anymore, and it seems like the era of the open protocol might be coming to an end, supplanted by the drive to create proprietary closed platforms. This week, we discuss whether the open protocol is dead, and what that means for the future of the open internet.

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Filed Under: platforms, podcast, protocols

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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2016 @ 4:06pm

IRC was used as a messaging platform for numerous online services over the years. Livestream's chat room for example had an IRC backend for many, many years.

For numerous years, Google had embraced XMPP for Google Chat in the

Constant legal attacks on the file sharing community really shattered a lot of decentralized, open source communities. Heavy Bittorrent users were also heavy users of other decentralized protocols. Aggressive online surveillance and profiling has further shrunken those communities down. NSA didn't help anyone and the way Snowden revealed what he did scared more people away.

Open protocols are hardly dead, but more needs to be done to bolster them up. Security. Ease of management. Redundancy. UI/UX. Speed.
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- Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2016 @ 1:40am
  
  Re:
  The other reason that centralized servers and closed protocols are winning out is the difficulty and extra expense involved in getting a fixed IP address in many countries. This makes the likes of Twitter and Facebook much more convenient than the hassle of getting a fixed IP address, or a real or virtual server on some data center. This also makes for a weakness in distributed protocols, the necessity for some central address resolution server, like a file tracker.
  Fixed IP addresses, and use of the hosts file would also increase privacy by a more direct routing of traffic to friends and family.
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Skeeter, 16 Aug 2016 @ 9:30pm

Open Platform Protocls
Hopefully, this isn't a 'real issue'. As long as GPL 2.0 open-source Linux is available, I highly doubt that ANY of the old protocols will be 'abandoned', merely not be used in Google or Microsoft applications. TO this, I have to say, 'so what?'

Keep in mind, proprietary protocols may be 'closed source', but they are also 'proprietary' too. Someone DOES have the source code, and you can bet your bottom dollar that if SOMEONE has it, the government has it. Closed-source protocols is government-speak for 'we can see what you do, but since we don't trust you with matches, you can't see what we are doing to you'.

No thanks, I know enough about WWII Nazi Europe to know this is NOT a solution, only a larger problem for all.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2016 @ 5:51pm

I guess the answer is 'yes'. At least for Techdirt.
Since I cannot listen to the 'Podcast' without going to a a 'platform' - 'Soundcloud' or 'iTunes'.

Both of which require me to permit them to execute code in the form of Javascript on my own machine - a security hazard and a violation of my privacy.

A simple link to an audio file I could have listened to - As has been possible since 1994 or so. Or for that matter a direct link to a streaming protocol.

I am always saddened to find such a thing on an otherwise enlightended site.

Before Techdirt and others kill them, I would like to note that protocols tend to be open, free, and available to all.
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- Anonymous Coward, 18 Aug 2016 @ 12:37pm
  
  Re: I guess the answer is 'yes'. At least for Techdirt.
  Just grab the RSS feed, or open it in the browser and download the file.
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- Leigh Beadon (profile), 18 Aug 2016 @ 12:46pm
  
  Re: I guess the answer is 'yes'. At least for Techdirt.
  There is a directly MP3 link for every episode in the RSS feed
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  - Anonymous Coward, 18 Aug 2016 @ 11:17pm
    
    Re: Re: I guess the answer is 'yes'. At least for Techdirt.
    HA! So there is. Sorry about that.
    
    I associate rss with small snippets of text, not media files, so never looked. Perhaps putting that link by the other media file links would be helpful to others as well?
    
    At any rate thanks! My bad.
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