Bonum Certa Men Certa

Techrights Statement on Paths Ahead in the Era of News Drought and Widely-Waning Web

Summary: We're striving to get into a habit of publishing about a dozen blog posts per day; in order to do this we change our strategy with immediate effect

YESTERDAY we wrote about the need to pause and rethink how we do articles and how we curate Daily Links. We've since then experimented with a new approach and published about half a dozen articles with many recent references in each.

This site is turning 17 in a few months. It did change (it evolved) a lot over the years. Daily Links turned 15 this past February and IRC turned 15 about a month ago.

It is with that in mind that we:

  1. Pause our old approach of gathering news links (too low a signal-to-noise ratio in them).
  2. prioritise writing new articles, even if that means fewer batches of Daily Links
  3. Prepare videos where video presentation is more suitable and desirable than textual form


We're in the privileged position of enjoying greater personal freedom than ever before (when this site started in 2006 I was still a Ph.D candidate working on my thesis, later I worked part time and then full time). We'd like to make best use of time to promote Software Freedom and to advance justice, with greater focus on science and technology matters rather than "pure" politics.

Social control media is in disarray at the moment (several large platforms are collapsing, not exactly for the same reasons). We hope that many of the escapees will end up self-hosting and, better yet, adopting Gemini.

In recent years we've been producing over 3,000 blog posts (with analogous GemLog posts) per year and we should be able to do over 4,000 a year if we adopt the correct strategy. Priorities need to change somewhat. We have some exciting (to me us least) plans for the next 5-10 years; they're not limited to the World Wide Web, so the fate of the Web does not matter so much to us (we're resistant to the Web's demise; all our articles are in IPFS, GemText, plain text and more). We have hitherto identified where a lot of time was being (mostly) 'wasted' and we will work to correct those older habits and hopefully exceed a dozen blog posts per day once the dust settles.

The Web is getting smaller (yes, we've provided evidence over the years that it is shrinking over time), search engines rapidly deteriorate in terms of quality (the reasons for this merit a discussion some other day, in isolation), and newsrooms collapse at an alarming rate, with editors forced to resign from widely-known news sites almost every week. These trends seem irreversible for "business reasons". There's no point fighting those trends. No single person or company can change that.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Hijacked Again by Patent Litigation Industry, as President Cheeto Prioritises Aggressors
The "mafia" has taken over the "industry" and the Federal system (justice and constitutions trampled upon)
Ubuntu Slop and FUD Manufactured With LLMs and Funded (by Oneself) 'Studies'
Slop and FUD are ruining the Web
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: Games and More
Links for the day
Why We're Reporting Brett Wilson LLP for Apparently Misusing Their Licence to Protect American Microsofters Who Attack Women
For those who have not been keeping abreast
Stefano Maffulli and His Microsoft-Funded OSI Staff Are Killing the OSI and Killing "Open Source" (All for Money!)
This is far from over
Techrights Headlines as Semaphore
"If you are hearing this, thank you"
 
Gemini Protocol Has Growing Appeal (the Web Got Too Bloated and Full of LLM Slop)
For any "data plan" with bandwidth limits or "tiers" it would be cheaper to use/browse Geminispace
The Web Can Survive LLM Slop, But Only If We Collectively Shun and Discourage Serial Sloppers
Doing nothing ought not be a possibility
Amid Secret Shut-downs and Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (4 Waves of Layoffs in 3 Months of 2025) Some Microsoft Staff Expected to Go On Strike
workers going on strike
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: No more on Mastodon and Gemini Mention Script in Go
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 01, 2025
My Motion Disbarring or “Striking Off” Brett Wilson LLP for Enabling Violent Americans Who Try to Crush Microsoft Critics in the United Kingdom by Multiple SLAPPs
"Guns for hire" (for Microsoft people who received Microsoft salaries)
Links 01/04/2025: Apple Fined $162M for Privacy Abuses, Disinformation Online a Growing Concern
Links for the day
Newer Press Reports Confirm That Microsoft Shuts Down 'Hey Hi' (AI) Labs Despite All the Hype
The "hey hi" (AI) bubble is not sustainable
Links 01/04/2025: Mass Layoffs at Eidos and "Microsoft Pulls Back on Data Centers" (Demand Lacking); "Racist and Sexist" Slop From Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: XKCDpunk and worldclock.py
Links for the day
50 Years of Sabotage and a Gut Punch to Computer Science (and Science in General)
Will we get back to science-based computing rather than cult-like following?
3 Months in 2025, 4 Waves of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, Now Offices Shut Down Permanently
"A recent visit by the South China Morning Post confirmed that the office was dark, unoccupied, and had its logo removed."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 31, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 31, 2025
Links 31/03/2025: China Tensions, Bombs Falling in Myanmar After Earthquake
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: Falling Out of Love With Tech, Sunsetting openSNP
Links for the day
R.T.O. at IBM in Texas and Atlanta (State of Georgia) Expected as "Soft Layoffs" Catalyst This Coming Year
It also sounds like more IBM layoffs are in the making
Law Firms Can Also Lose Their Licence for Clearly Misusing It
The bottom line is, never made the false assumption that because you can pile up SLAPPs in a docket you will not suffer from bad reputation or even get disbarred
Link between institutional abuse, Swiss jurists, Debianism and FSFE
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
LLM Slop Piggybacking News About GNU/Linux and Distorting It
new examples
Links 31/03/2025: Press and Democracy Under Further Attacks in the US, Attitudes Towards Slop Sour
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: The OSI Does Not Respect Anybody's Privacy
The surveillance mafia that bans dissent or key people (even co-founders) with dissenting views
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: More X-Filesposting and Dreaming in Emacs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 30, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 30, 2025