I draw the line at slashdot becoming a pony cartoon. Anything short of that I think I'm okay with... especially if it pisses off the hipsters.

The only outcome of censorship, logically, is less of whatever it is you are trying to censor. So yes, if the objective is more science, and you would hope it would be, then you do not want the government interfering with it.

You know, reading Chinese state media is always funny to me. They're always so friendly when they talk about changing the way the monetary system works, and they do the same thing on other topics.

It's a false dichotomy to assume that having DRM in the standard makes the web any more or less free. What you get it useless, easily bipassable security features that placates content providers for the time being. At some point, I think they're all going to give up DRM, and we'll regard it as silly as the pay walls nobody ever uses, that are built into the http.

DRM doesn't change anything meaningful.
You still have a choice as to whether or not you're going to use it on your site. If you don't like DRM, fine. Don't implement it. The web will not cease to exist because people want to stream movies on Netflix using standards compliant code.

It would work, too, if the value of these services was not in a perpetual downward spiral. In order to make this happen, you would need some compelling reason this was a sensible investment. Honestly, while I think the idea is pretty cool... I'm just not seeing how it could possibly work. Maybe if you had a whole bevy of similar or inter-related services offered by commodity providers?

Right. And Lycos and the other second generation search engines were always getting hacked. My big concern here, is that Watson is a great AI, but it doesn't have anywhere near the experience in ranking that Google does. I'm sure IBM has the ability to retrofit it if they want to, but knowing the answer to a question, and judging the quality of a website are two completely different things.

Very good point. Ever since I started my company, my workload has doubled. I'm still writing the same amount of code as I ever did, but I'm also doing every other job role that's required. I find that I do my best work when I'm working a double shift on Indian time, which works out to about 9 hours off a normal daytime schedule. I work through the night when it's nice and quiet, and I'm awake early enough in the morning to take frenzied client phone calls (they always call early). My wife never sees me, but I've managed to stay in business for eight months so far, so I'm doing okay with it.

I dunno. Sounds like it could be a fascinating field.

That more programmers will wake up from the delusion that they have to work nine to five, and that suddenly, I'll have a lot more competition from people just as talented and driven as I am... in the same areas I specialize. That's a pretty frightening thought, even if it is unrealistic. Most programmers don't actually make it to that point in their career at all, so in all reality, I that's not the kind of thing I lose any sleep over.

people need to start getting smarter about how they get their educations, and classify their incomes.

Okay, granted. I'm just saying that the pat reason for not using Google and Bing that 90+% of people are going to ignorantly spout (privacy) is a dumb reason, because none of the other options are more secure, or any more private than the first two. Not one of them is. And, reading through the thread, not one poster has proposed anything that actually would be secure or private.

There are a plethora of other reasons though. Why not be creative, and think out a plausible reason this would be an issue to begin with?

What's wrong with Google again, that isn't wrong with every single other option listed?

If anyone says "privacy," and the recommends any search provider based in the US, UK, or Europe... they're getting smacked with a fish. I don't know how. I don't know when. But I will find a way.

When I was a kid, I didn't fit in with any group. There were the jocks, the nerds, and a couple of other groups. It was fair to say that if there was a group of kids that fit into a group like that, I was more than likely getting beat up by them. Today, they call me a nerd, but I'm not. I've never been a nerd. You don't have to be a nerd to work in technology, or even write code. I'm just a normal guy with a family, trying to make a living.

I have to tell you that most of the time, the thefts (usually by direct competitors) are minor, and I don't generally care. If I cared about every snippet of code I've ever written that's showed up on some other website, I wouldn't be doing anything else. But there's a lot of different kinds of theft to consider. It's one thing when someone borrows a javascript from you. I usually use that as a sales tool. "Hey look, this code is good enough, that you can see my competitors using it" it's funny, and it works. It's another thing entirely when they break into your home and steal your proprietary cms that you've been developing for five years. I've had that happen too. That kind of thing is usually handled with a lawsuit... if they're dumb enough to actually use it without paying you. As far as clients leaving, and the new company putting their names on my websites, that's usually not malicious (even though the practice sucks). More often than not, it's handled with a polite phone call to the new company.

Shareware was awesome. That counts.