New post: I am still alive, and so is the Internet
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<p>I've come to the radical and totally shocking conclusion that I personally don't care if corporations start using NFTs as a Digital Restrictions Management scheme to further lock down their products. Actually, I take that back: I <em>hope</em> they do, and quickly, because the more restricted their products are, whether software or music or games, the less appealing said products will be for the end consumer and thus the less money said companies will make.</p>
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<p>I follow a great deal of Tumblr accounts without having an account myself due to this funny little thing called RSS. Over the past month, one of them, which I followed for the occult memes, has been throwing a shitfit over <a href="https://archive.md/6rYq7#selection-517.0-517.8">the public backlash from their planned NFT collection</a>. It turns out that almost nobody actually wants to pony up large chunks of money for the privilege of... accessing a full-quality GIF in a digital locker.</p>
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<p>And why should they? It's not as if the art, from what the preview GIFs show me, is of high artistic merit. Why would someone go through the hassle of setting up a crypto wallet, paying the money, and figuring out what convoluted authentication scheme the digital locker uses to access the art just to... claim ownership over a chunk of ones and zeros? Thanks to the analog hole, either the value would tank when the buyer tried to show off the GIF they'd bought as it would be the full-quality one and now available to everyone to see and steal, or whatever site they uploaded it to would compress it, in which case there would be no point to having bought it as they could have just used the preview one to get the same end quality.</p>
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<p>This person losing a large chunk of their followers from what they perceived to be as "selling out" is, to me, a microcosm of what is to come if corporations start trying to use NFTs as a DRM mechanism. Any PC gamer knows what a hassle existing DRM methods like Denuvo are, especially when trying to get games working on any operating system that isn't Microshaft Wangblows. There comes a point where the software's attempts to ensure it isn't an "unauthorized" copy are so intrusive- remember the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal">Sony rootkit</a>?- that it becomes more of a hassle to tolerate it than to learn how to use a less-restrictive alternative. Even the most dedicated <a href="../../2020/february/consumeproduct.html">"bugman"</a> has a limit. (That is, when one is aware an alternative exists...) I originally learned how to use Linux because my Windows install had found a way to break itself, and fixing it every day would have been more effort than just learning how to run Ubuntu, even though I was terrified of breaking my computer at the time due to my then-incompetence. <strong>The more opaque and DRM-ridden a product is, the closer to "path of least resistance" a pirated version of said product with the DRM removed or an alternative that never had the DRM becomes.</strong></p>
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<p>This person losing a large chunk of their followers from what they perceived to be as "selling out" is, to me, a microcosm of what is to come if corporations start trying to use NFTs as a DRM mechanism. Any PC gamer knows what a hassle existing DRM methods like Denuvo are, especially when trying to get games working on any operating system that isn't Microshaft Wangblows. There comes a point where the software's attempts to ensure it isn't an "unauthorized" copy are so intrusive - remember the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal">Sony rootkit</a>? - that it becomes more of a hassle to tolerate it than to learn how to use a less-restrictive alternative. Even the most dedicated "bugman" has a limit. (That is, when one is aware an alternative exists...) I originally learned how to use Linux because my Windows install had found a way to break itself, and fixing it every day would have been more effort than just learning how to run Ubuntu, even though I was terrified of breaking my computer at the time due to my then-incompetence. <strong>The more opaque and DRM-ridden a product is, the closer to "path of least resistance" a pirated version of said product with the DRM removed or an alternative that never had the DRM becomes.</strong></p>
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<p>Rejecting intrusive DRM need not mean a loss of revenue for artists. Before my parents finally allowed me access to my bank account in 2019 (which had existed before then, but they hadn't allowed me to withdraw any money...?) and I got my first real job later that year, my consumptive habits were limited to whatever I could squeeze past my parents' censors or what I could acquire on my own for free. Any music that I could not torrent, any video games that I could not find an emulator (or, later, a hacked console) for, any books I could not find on eBook Bike (which later went to shit when they required registration to download) or Z-Library, I had to go without. This restriction led me to places like Bandcamp, which had a plethora of music free to download from every genre I could possibly think of. There was (and still is) no DRM to be had, just an optional prompt to donate whatever money one thought the album was worth.</p>
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<p>And, as it turned out, many of those albums which were free to me ended up becoming some of my favorites:</p>
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<p><img class="big" src="../../../img/plug2.png" alt="screenshot of a creepy plug mascot saying 'keep this sh*t safe, forreal'" /></p>
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<p>I get the feeling that the people at Fleek (the company that made Plug) don't take professionalism very seriously. Which is all good and fine when you're a Broke Dumbass like me who just wants to snark at everything, but when you're a company dealing with financial assets... well, a mascot with a creepy face who swears at you during the onboarding process doesn't exactly reassure the user that the company won't lose all the customer's assets.</p>
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<p>Once I'd suffered all the way through the Plug setup, I went back to DSCVR, now ready to sign in. The homepage immediately blasted me with a post where... <a href="https://archive.ph/orEH0">Christians were arguing over whether Christ had a vagina</a>. (DSCVR also seems quite hostile to being archived by both the Wayback Machine and archive.md.) I was expecting the usual NFT hype to clog every post, but this time I had to actually scroll for it. I'm still not sure if I'd prefer the NFTs or not.</p>
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<p>On your first visit, a welcome popup appears offering a site tour. Page one of the tour (there are six in total) is about receiving NFT airdrops... and so is page three. Page five says you can make <del>subreddits</del> "portals", and then paywall them by requiring certain NFTs to visit. I don't have any NFTs, and I don't have any interest in <a href="../../2021/december/copywrong.html">paywalling my content</a>, but I forged ahead to the login page anyway.</p>
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<p>On your first visit, a welcome popup appears offering a site tour. Page one of the tour (there are six in total) is about receiving NFT airdrops... and so is page three. Page five says you can make <del>subreddits</del> "portals", and then paywall them by requiring certain NFTs to visit. I don't have any NFTs, and I don't have any interest in <a href="../../2021/12/copywrong.html">paywalling my content</a>, but I forged ahead to the login page anyway.</p>
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<p>There are two options for logging in to DSCVR: Google, and Internet Computer. It'd be a pretty weird Internet Computer app if you couldn't log in that way, and I'm not letting Google touch my device with a ten-foot pole, so I chose Internet Computer...</p>
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<p>...and, instead of using the Plug wallet I set up solely for the purposes of interacting with Internet Computer, it prompted me to create an "anchor". I didn't have one, so I clicked the "create anchor" button. It asked for the name of the device I was using, and then a popup appeared asking me to plug in a Yubikey.</p>
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<p>But I don't have one.</p>
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<p align="center"><img src="../../../img/NO_THIRD_PARTIES.jpg" alt="deep-fried meme of man screaming surrounded by various web3 company logos" alt="deep-fried meme of man screaming surrounded by various web3 company logos" /></p>
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<p><strong>If the whole point of web3 is to decentralize everything, then I don't want to use third parties to host my website!</strong> I want to host my own stuff without needing a supercomputer or a persistent connection or static IP address!</p>
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<p>As far as serverless hosting goes, we already have Freenet and the gazillion ZeroNet forks and whatever Beaker Browser is using nowadays and IPFS, the latter of which works just fine without the gazillion "blockchain domain" scams. In fact, since most of these web3 projects are built off IPFS anyway, why go through a middleman? Because these projects incentivize people to host your shit? If the content is popular enough, there doesn't need to be a profit motive for your content to stay alive and be well-propagated; it'll just happen naturally.</p>
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<p>How are low-income and other disenfranchised people supposed to participate in web3 without just becoming sharecroppers all over again? With the profit motive, and since storage space is limited, nodes have an incentive to seed anything a wealthy person wants and give the leftover scraps of storage and bandwidth, if any are left, to the "free" users. If microtransactions are required to view anything, then how is a person with little to no "disposable" income supposed to discover new content they may like? (Of course, <a href="../../2021/december/copywrong.html">a counter-economy of non-commercial content sans paywalls may very well rise up in response.</a>)</p>
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<p>How are low-income and other disenfranchised people supposed to participate in web3 without just becoming sharecroppers all over again? With the profit motive, and since storage space is limited, nodes have an incentive to seed anything a wealthy person wants and give the leftover scraps of storage and bandwidth, if any are left, to the "free" users. If microtransactions are required to view anything, then how is a person with little to no "disposable" income supposed to discover new content they may like? (Of course, <a href="../../2021/12/copywrong.html">a counter-economy of non-commercial content sans paywalls may very well rise up in response.</a>)</p>
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<blockquote>I say: let them. Let them lock down their works so tightly that they become utterly inaccessible. Let them miss out on the money they would have earned from now-disgruntled customers. Let the corporations destroy themselves in building a dam to maximize every dollar flowing to them only to find their river is drying up.</blockquote>
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<p>I wish that web3 evangelists would realize that the average layperson doesn't give a shit about decentralization in the computing sense. They don't care about making their files as accessible as possible, just to themselves. To them, Google Drive or OneDrive or whatever other cloud storage services are in vogue are plenty good enough for them. They would rather see ads and sharecrop on centralized social media platforms than open their wallets to pay for an inferior service. And of those with the technological expertise to operate one of these nodes if we <em>really</em> wanted to, well... <em>I</em> know that <em>I</em> wouldn't want to live in a world where every interaction with my fellow (physically) human beings is monetized. And I doubt that many others would either. If improving the Internet is the goal, especially on this increasingly fragile planet, replacing the current system with something functionally worse but <a href="https://archive.ph/Xr2Y1">multitudes more energy-intensive</a> <!-- https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/03/climate/bitcoin-carbon-footprint-electricity.html -->
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is not the solution.</p>
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<title>I am still alive, and so is the Internet - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios</title>
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<link href="../../../style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all">
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<meta name="author" content="Vane Vander">
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<h1>I am still alive, and so is the Internet</h1>
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<p>published: 2026-01-13</p>
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<p>As the Redditors say, "title".</p>
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<p>One of my favorite "content" "creators", <a href="https://redirect.invidious.io/channel/UC2Y0KKomVw83JDgjVqVCGzg">Art Chad</a>, released a <a href="https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=aECSgXr5-hY">new video</a> earlier today. Which, depending on your region or client or some other variable known only to Google, either shows up as "You Ran Out of Time to Hide" or "It Begins: 2025 Is The Year The Internet Went Dark". By the time you read this, Mr. Chad will probably have come up with a third title to A/B/C test the algorithm with in search of that sweet, sweet ad revenue.</p>
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<p>The thing is, neither of those titles are true. Unless:</p>
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<li>a significant amount of your identity/personality is "I am a person who uses and posts on social media", or</li>
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<li>you are a "content" "creator" who demands money in recompense for your "content".</li>
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<p>One of the major arguments in Chad's video is that <a href="https://youtu.be/aECSgXr5-hY?t=350">"the Internet is on life support, all because of companies who don't even turn a profit."</a> But I see no evidence of this in my day-to-day life:</p>
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<li>the two websites I deliver freelance work on are running fine;</li>
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<li>Codeberg (the current host of the clearnet version of this website) is running fine;</li>
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<li>Libby (how my local library offers e-books for "borrowing") is running fine;</li>
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<li>the local library itself's website is running fine;</li>
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<li><a href="https://lite.cnn.com">CNN's "lite" version</a> is running fine;</li>
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</ul>
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<p>et cetera, et cetera. Chad's evidence is that <a href="https://youtu.be/aECSgXr5-hY?t=717">the amount of AI-generated content on social media is as high as 70%</a>, a statistic I won't try to dispute. But social media being full of slop is only a problem if you use social media. <a href="../../../recs/evil_social_media.html">Which you shouldn't be.</a> The closest thing I have to a "feed" is my RSS reader, which ever since most Nitter instances shut down is just for tracking <a href="https://core.s-config.com/users/S-Config/feed.atom">one dude's fediverse posts</a> and for updates to the zines I contribute to and my local library's event calendar. While Chad makes a good point about how <a href="https://youtu.be/aECSgXr5-hY?t=887">filters to remove AI slop will always fail since they'll always be lagging behind the slop generators, and in any case the filters would use up too much energy anyway</a>, if you only "follow" people who you know to not be creators of AI slop and you "consume" "content" in a way where algorithms aren't pumping "recommended" content at you from people you don't "follow" (for example, using an RSS reader), then filtering becomes a whole lot simpler. I can just create a regex blacklisting the names of all the characters from <em>Deltarune</em>, and my slop problems are solved.</p>
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<p>Another major argument in Art Chad's video is that <a href="https://youtu.be/aECSgXr5-hY?t=798">AI slop is stealing revenue from artists</a>. He is correct... on a factual level. Losing ad revenue is only a problem if you are expecting to make money from your content. I have never run ads on this website, and I have never paywalled my books or demanded money in exchange for them, and yet I am happy with the way my creative career is currently going. No algorithm is working in my favor, yet I receive several emails a month from people who have taken the effort to open their email client and write to me about how much they love my work. Would it be nice to receive extra money every once in a while? Sure, I guess. But I refuse to open up donations because I don't want to train myself to mentally associate publishing a book or a blog post with getting money. I don't want to be tempted to quit my job(s) to write full-time and then find myself forced to write slop in order to pay the bills. As I write in a book that will be published later this year, <em>The Ballad of Yune</em>, "the moment you take commissions is the moment your soul starts to die."</p>
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<p>The final argument in Art Chad's video, which I find the most laughable:</p>
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<blockquote><a href="https://youtu.be/aECSgXr5-hY?t=1385">Whatever it was that we had for the past two decades is dead. Like Black Ops 2, a platform once filled with memories, joy, and humans. It will all be gone. Overrun by bots and irreparably unusable to any human... You can't do anything about this. All you can do is open social media and watch the chaos exponentially unfold.</a></blockquote>
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<p>AI slop could overrun Twitter and I would still be here on this website. AI slop could overrun Substack and Medium and WordPress and I would still be here on this website. AI slop could (somehow) overrun Codeberg and I would still be here on this website. AI slop could <em>kill</em> Codeberg and I'd just change the DNS records to point to a VPS I'd rent and then I'd still be on my website. If I were a musician (since Mr. Chad's video focuses on the music industry)? Spotify could be 100% AI slop and I'd just release my music on Bandcamp. Bandcamp could be 100% AI slop and I'd just upload the FLACs to a MEGA folder and post the link on this website. Someone <em>please</em> tell this man about <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20260113232240/https://indieweb.org/POSSE">POSSE</a>.</p>
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<p>Social media would be dead, sure. Spotify and other streaming sites would be nigh-unusable. But unless getting a Neuralink becomes legally mandated, AI bot farms can't do anything about word-of-mouth recommendation. AI bot farms can't stop me from going to those "hiding spots" and sharing a link to a post hosted on the "open web". Not everything has to be a global phenomenon.</p>
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<p>Going back to that video title, "You Ran Out of Time to Hide", have you heard of my favorite darknet, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20260113230841/https://www.hyphanet.org/">Hyphanet</a>? It's still here, and it's still legal to use (at least in the USA). There is still time. There is plenty of time.</p>
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<p>Until major parts of <em>actual physical</em> Internet infrastructure start breaking, the Internet is still alive and well. If you won't listen to me, listen to this one person I found in the comments section of the video:</p>
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<blockquote>Everyone needs to go back to creating their own websites. A lot of these problems stem from us, relying on massive platforms instead of hosting our own.</blockquote>
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<p>And Mr. Chad, in the infinitesimally small chance you're reading this? Black Ops 2 wasn't <a href="https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=Pk1TygHN6h0">"a cornerstone of <em>all</em> of our childhoods"</a>. Some of us were busy playing <a href="https://archive.ph/https://tcrf.net/SimCity_4" title="Happy 23rd birthday, SimCity 4!">better games</a>.</p>
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<p align=right>CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 © Vane Vander</p>
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<blockquote>"The first time you meet an angel, you get a horrible beating."<br>- Terry A. Davis</blockquote>
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<blockquote>"I am deliberate and afraid of nothing."<br>- Audre Lorde</blockquote>
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<h2>2026</h2>
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<li>January 13 - <a href="./2026/01/doom.html">I am still alive, and so is the Internet</a></li>
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<h2>2025</h2>
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<h2>2021</h2>
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<li>December 4 - <a href="./2021/december/copywrong.html">Copyright Accelerationism</a></li>
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<li>December 4 - <a href="./2021/12/copywrong.html">Copyright Accelerationism</a></li>
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<li>September 28 - <a href="./2021/september/nosimp.html">No Simp September</a></li>
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<li>September 26 - <a href="./2021/september/not-harmful.html">Considering software harmful considered harmful</a></li>
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<li>September 19 - <a href="./2021/september/fire.html">Fire Walk With Me</a></li>
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<h3>Announcement Box</h3>
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<li><b>2026-01-07</b>: I have received a <a href="./img/hidden/dmca.png">"DMCA notice"</a>. I highly suggest everyone read it.</li>
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<li><b>2026-01-13</b>: Personally I vastly prefer writing poetry to prose, but earlier today during exercise I saw <a href="https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=aECSgXr5-hY">a video so dumb</a> that I had to <a href="./blog/2026/01/doom.html">resurrect my blog to complain about it</a>.</li>
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