RFC 8890 – The Internet is for End Users (2020)
mnot.net31 points by notarobot123 an hour ago
31 points by notarobot123 an hour ago
Inevitably the internet will have two types of users:
1. The anti-bot bots that must stop you from proceeding, because they aren't entirely sure you aren't a bot
2. The bots that can get past them, which we all must eventually deploy, if we want a chance to visit a web pageWhy would anyone ever want to solve 99 Cloudflare captchas a day if you can get a bot to do it instead?
Literally used an LLM to answer the latest one which was "what can climb a tree".
Cloudflare is a blight on the internet, but HN loves it.
The internet is for whoever wants to send bits to each other and is willing to pay for transit to do it. The WWW might be for end users, though that seems less obvious by the day.
what you write is excactly the problem the RFC tries to address. And not only for http but for the whole internet protocol family.
This is an awkward read, the result of trying to convey an idea while couched in other language.
That idea being that humans are more important than AI.
Who's an end user.
Unless you own your hardware, you aren't the end user. When your phone, tv, camera, or even laptop on a non-free OS is on your network, you can get some semblance of control by controlling what network services it uses.
Things like DoH are part of the removal of my control as a home user and give it to Sony, or Apple, or TPLink
The most obvious thing is it becomes harder to block adverts.
Throw in internet-centralisation through HN darlings like cloudflare and you're screwed. You have no idea what anything is talking to, as it's the same destination IPs, so the choice is either block it completely, or allow it with no control.
I do share your actual concern, but I think the term 'end user' applies to any human sitting in front of a computer, trying to achieve something, independently of whether the effective sysadmin works against his interests or not.
> Who's an end user.
I think in this context it'd be any netizen who does not hold a significant amount of power to influence other [unrelated to them] netizens?
So me. The only influence I have over what "my" phone does is monitoring and blocking what it connects to when it's connected to my network.
DoH works against that