>Brendan Eich is literally the guy who normalized letting websites run code on your machine. Even if we generously assume his intentions are good, the kind of thinking that brought us JavaScript is not even capable of grokking what I want from my browser in terms of privacy, security, and respect for my attention.
Unbelievable. Now we're to be angry at (or at least, suspicious of) Eich for inventing Javascript? Because... it can used for evil? Is that really a path we should be going down? Is Tim Berners-Lee next? Come on.
>They started, right off the bat, by getting in bed with advertisers. That's their revenue stream. That's not how you fund a browser that serves users, that's how you fund a browser that serves advertisers.
This is similarly disingenuous. They started trying to solve the problem of facilitating an advertising model that respects privacy and rewarding creators (users) with revenue in the form of BAT tokens.
Say what you want about the execution, or the idea in general — but it's a noble goal.
I'm no fan of Eich's politics but your overall framing here is grossly misleading.
> Unbelievable. Now we're to be angry at (or at least, suspicious of) Eich for inventing Javascript? Because... it can used for evil? Is that really a path we should be going down? Is Tim Berners-Lee next? Come on.
There is literally no good case for JavaScript. It's literally malware: code that runs on your machine without your explicitly installing it and does things that serves the website, not the user. The fact that it's in a sandbox to limit the harm it can cause is nice, but it doesn't really solve the fundamental problem.
Formats such as social media profiles, recipes, etc., would have been better served as document formats separate from or included in HTML.
More complex things like Google Maps could have been done as native apps--and still are, because the web app simply can't provide the same level of experience as a native app.
> They started trying to solve the problem of facilitating an advertising model that respects privacy and rewarding creators (users) with revenue in the form of BAT tokens.
If I want to reward a creator I can pay them without a middle man: BAT complicates that rather than simplifying it.
Advertising is a social harm. An advertising model that respects privacy, still disrespects attention, bandwidth, power usage, etc.
It should be clear that content creators aren't browser's target users, but since you brought it up: advertising generally creates a race to the bottom which incentivizes low-quality, low-effort content creation which creates a filtering problem: now it's hard to find the high-quality content amid the half-assed AI-generated nonsense. Publications which are high enough quality to be paid for, such as the NYT, have obviously been harmed by ad-based business models becoming the norm.
> Say what you want about the execution, or the idea in general — but it's a noble goal.
Their goal is to make money, and they've set it up so that their goal of making money is dependent on pleasing advertisers, not users.
The noble goals you're claiming simply are not true.
It's one thing to say that Javascript is massively over-relied on (I might even agree) but this is not anywhere close to a serious, well-considered argument. It's a joke.
I'm not interested in engaging further because extremist positions like this indicate that the speaker is not interested in meaningful debate.
> > There is literally no good case for JavaScript.
> It's one thing to say that Javascript is massively over-relied on (I might even agree) but this is not anywhere close to a serious, well-considered argument.
Perhaps if you quoted past the first sentence you'd find the serious, well-considered argument you're looking for.
> I'm not interested in engaging further because extremist positions like this indicate that the speaker is not interested in meaningful debate.
Quoting a sentence out of context, calling it extremist, and then exiting without responding to any of the substance of my post makes it look awfully like you aren't interested in whatever you think "meaningful debate" means.
The extremist position is that visiting a website implies consent to the website running arbitrary code on my hardware. The only reason this has become accepted is that it's profitable to powerful people.
It wasn't my intent to misrepresent your position — The context is right there for anyone to see.
I didn't see anything you wrote that provides extra nuance to the statement. That is - nothing you wrote softens or modifies the quote. Am I right, or did I miss something? You were pretty clear. You even used "literally".
Sure... you went on to say why you see it like that, but that's not what being "quoted out of context" means. Is there some caveat, exception or nuance you were trying to express that modifies what you meant?
As for why I didn't engage further, let me ask you this — what if I tell you JS provides several good use cases for me and people I know? Will you then agree that some people do find good uses cases for JS or will you try to tell me I'm wrong? My impression so far is the latter.
You see what I mean? There doesn't seem to be any point in engaging.
As for the rest - I have no interest in debating BAT, or the advertising world. We largely agree. My point was simply that you misrepresented their value proposition by insisting there was never even a theoretical benefit to users and creators. It's a non-starter for having a useful conversation IMHO.
Unbelievable. Now we're to be angry at (or at least, suspicious of) Eich for inventing Javascript? Because... it can used for evil? Is that really a path we should be going down? Is Tim Berners-Lee next? Come on.
>They started, right off the bat, by getting in bed with advertisers. That's their revenue stream. That's not how you fund a browser that serves users, that's how you fund a browser that serves advertisers.
This is similarly disingenuous. They started trying to solve the problem of facilitating an advertising model that respects privacy and rewarding creators (users) with revenue in the form of BAT tokens.
Say what you want about the execution, or the idea in general — but it's a noble goal.
I'm no fan of Eich's politics but your overall framing here is grossly misleading.