webshit weekly

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the third week of May, 2020.

A small restaurant owner on Google, DoorDash, and Grubhub
May 15, 2020 (comments)
The title of this article is in fact "How Google, DoorDash, & GrubHub Conspire to Screw Local Restaurants," but this language offended the "Hacker" "News" janitors, who then neutered it. A recovering webshit starts a real business, then gets mad about standard webshit business practices. Hackernews senses that placing ads for other companies with your own contact information is somehow wrong, but they can't quite piece together how that might be so. Hackernews wonders if it might be fraud, but surely if you just announce that your business partners can fuck themselves in the Terms of Service of your website, then you can do whatever you want?

If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs
May 16, 2020 (comments)
Some asshole has forgotten how to use the web, and declares it lost. Hackernews, whose web experience has shrunk to "Hacker" "News," GitHub, and Stack Overflow, demands a return to the web of their youths, just as soon as they figure out how to post blog articles without being held in any way responsible for the content they write. Various Hackernews consider the dream to remain alive on places like Facebook or Reddit, completely missing the point. A handful of Hackernews attempt to name blogs that they like, or explain the inexorability of the death of human communication. Arguments break out about which computer programs are necessary to post text files on the internet.

Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage
May 17, 2020 (comments)
An Internet continues the "fuck DoorDash" song. On the article itself, a Google shows up to insist that Google is not capable of wrongdoing (by definition) and a former GrubHub shows up to denounce what hath been wrought. Meanwhile, a Hackernews reports similarly bending DoorDash over a table, and Hackernews spends the rest of the day trying to ascertain whether DoorDash got defrauded, got what was coming to it, both, or neither.

Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube
May 18, 2020 (comments)
Google decides whose side they're on (not yours). Hackernews is either furious that Google has so much control over the internet, or else is employed by Google, and so must mount a frenzied defense of the sanctity of Googlean motivations. It's morally untenable to work for a company as powerful as Google that does not give a shit about human rights, so siding with the 共匪 must be evidence that Google supports human rights, no matter how many unwilling 共产 get killed by the 野蛮匪. Thousands of comments are posted, wherein Hackernews patiently explains that it's crucial to allow anyone on earth to say anything they want at any time, because otherwise Hackernews may one day be personally inconvenienced. This must be balanced, continues Hackernews, by the need of all corporations to obey the wishes of every single government on earth, no matter how oppressive, because corporations are non-political entities that exist outside of human ethical considerations.

New York Times phasing out all 3rd-party advertising data
May 19, 2020 (comments)
The New York Times DIYs it. Hackernews complains about all of the adware they get paid to build, which leads into a confused debate where Hackernews tries to figure out what the exact difference is between an 'app' and a 'website,' which one the New York Times website is (in comparison to Slack, for some reason), and what the right path forward is for user surveillance at the Times. Later, Hackernews spends hours morosely dreaming of a world where targeted advertising worked, and we could be introduced to things we'd like. Sadly, the entire field is a scam, and instead we get garbage.

Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?
May 20, 2020 (comments)
Some webshits notice that websockets are being abused. Hackernews patiently explains to one another that port scanning is totally normal neighborly behavior and it's a bit selfish to just expect your web browser to do things or your behalf all the time. Let someone else have a turn!

Facebook to shift permanently toward more remote work after coronavirus
May 21, 2020 (comments)
Facebook discovers the internet. Hackernews is still trying to come up with reasons to believe that the latest customer of Structure and Interpretation of Learning You A Rust The Hard Way in 24 Hours in a Nutshell is going to fire up a Packard Bell in Dubuque and torpedo the salary bubble in San Francisco. Hackernews is slightly sad about sitting at home all the time, and would like to return to the office (or any other place where people adhere to a social contract which requires good-faith efforts at being pleasant. This isn't enough reason to rebel against working from home, though, so we're left with the threat of outsourcing and having to compete with someone just as smart as you are, but freed from the crushing weight of paying rent in the Haight.