Ask HN: What Happened to the Hacker News Colour Scheme?

I think it's probably a throwback to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA

I don't remember what HN did in 2012, this might be an example of code re-use...

It's a "blackout" not censorship.

We are experts at UX on HN, every one of us hence the intuitive black bar. I was wondering who has died? It could have been anyone. Fortunately it wasn't.

I think the internet should be made a public good. Basic access (e.g. a default ADSL of 5 MB/s downstream and 1 MB/s upstream) should be provided without any kind of restraint or caveat (e.g. your data sold to the highest bidder, facebook access only, etc.) in every household or citizen in civilised societies, without any kind of authentication, authorization or identification.

IMHO that's truer as more public offices and services offer or will start offering Internet-only services.

Deregulation could lead to lower prices and more options but in practice it often does the opposite. What will probably happen is that a lower tier of internet service is offered for a price under the current level. That lower tier will be limited in such as way as to be close to unusable for more than the most casual user. The next level will resemble what is currently more or less standard but it will cost more than you'd pay now. There will be some ludicrous all-you-can-eat option for double the price of the above, but those who subscribe to it will soon find out that even that option is limited in some ways, limits which can be lifted by paying 'a small fee' - per limited service.

There is an optimum somewhere between totally regulated and totally unregulated. As to whether the current situation in the US resembles that optimum I'll leave for the reader to decide but it should not come as a surprise if the incumbents in the 'net sector start abusing their market power as soon as restrictions are lifted.

I think it's better for the Internet to remain open, especially with the tendency of this sort of "choice" to become more a dictate that works out against the customer's favor, especially when a small number of players (ISPs) are involved. But I'm with you in feeling like I could probably drop my usage of it to a tiny fraction of what it is now, with little or no harm to my overall quality of life.

That may have to do with remembering life pre-Web. It was basically fine. Really. Impulsive consumption was harder and we were comfortable not having constant, instant, total access to all the world's trivia. So it was kinda better.

i know its supposed to be a general truth, that regulation raises costs. i mean how can it not, since in the absence of regulation costs would be minimized.

but can you explain why forcing Netflix (just for an example) to negotiate transit with every provider large enough to demand it helps lower any costs? presumably transit competition?

or how turning 'the internet' from a generic access method into a giant menu with a checkbox by every internet address helps lower cost? maybe because we'd be forced to examine all the options and our spending habits and select only the bundles we need?

and what about transitive services...probably need to shift pretty hard away from the whole micro services model, maybe i don't subscribe to the particular oauth channel your application needs.

doesn't this additional server and client side provisioning requirement create a huge barrier to entry? doesn't that weaken the whole competition argument?

i guess what i'd really love to see is some kind of defense for the cable-tv model of the internet beyond 'regulation bad, free markets good'

Well, why is today different from all other days? :)

I feel 100% special now :)

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