About 8 months ago I got pretty tired of seeing billionaire spam online. I could not bear to read about yet another rich guy who launched themselves (or their $200,000 car) into outer space 🚀 . I did not care about their expert opinion on the latest meme coin back then. I do not care about their expert opinion on the dangers of AI today.
So… I developed a tiny, free, and open source Firefox browser add-on called “Block the Rich”. It is completely local and private. No data is tracked. No data is phoned home.
The concept is pretty simple: whenever I load a web page, the extension quickly analyzes the content and intelligently blurs out any references to the Forbes Top 10 Billionaires. Some former and wannabe billionaires are blurred out of courtesy as well (I’m looking at you Trump and Kanye 🙄).
This project is a very early prototype that I built in the span of a few days. I have so many awesome ideas for enhancements but the truth is that the wind got completely knocked out of my sails when I put myself out there on Reddit many moons ago. There was absolutely zero public interest. To this day my wife and I are the only ones using the original prototype.
People of Lemmy, do you think there is a place on the internet for such a project, or is it time that I let it go?
Edit: I am blown away by the support from you all. Thank you! I am so excited to start polishing this baby up!
KNOW THY ENEMY
I think this project is a terrible idea (no offense OP, since I can see this comes from a level of frustration). Simply burying your head in the sand does not make these people go away. It doesn’t stop their abuses of power. It doesn’t make them any less of a bunch of douchebags. We the public need to know what they do.
I can see a (theoretically) positive outcome in media realizing that these articles don’t get the clicks they used to (if, i dunno, 30% of users use this extension).
“The clicks” don’t matter when these individuals own the media outlets and the social media platforms.
Finding this information is tough, but I searched to see what the most popular extension installed in Chrome is. One of the top extensions is Google Calendar. Even with it’s popularity, it only holds a 20% stake in calendar apps, and even then that doesn’t tell you how many people have actually installed the extension for Chrome. Basically what I am getting to is that the number of people who install extensions is really small. Like way, way smaller than us tech-savvy people might imagine, so OP’s extension isn’t going to affect click-throughs in the slightest bit - it would be a rounding error for some of these sites.
Having to constantly see what dumb bullshit Elon is saying or doing isn’t going to change anything in this world except the quality of my mental health. Some of us are just tired
They are counting on you to be tired. That’s on purpose.
I’m old enough to know that the only way things are going to change is when we start shedding blood. That’s just the reality of how fundamental societal changes happen. Things are either going to get better or worse, it’s just a matter of whose blood is running, theirs or ours. The fact is I’m old and tired and have lost my will to fight.
No amount of getting angry on the internet is going to change capitalism. No amount of voting is going to change capitalism. Changing the system while participating in the system is a fools errand and exactly what they want you to spend your time doing so you become old and tired like me. If you want to get rid of the rich and the hellscape they’ve created, you eat them. Asking me to get angry and not enjoy what little life I have left in me isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference.
“Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist.” ― George Carlin
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It was not a call to arms, it was an explanation of why I think the demand to get riled up on an internet forum is futile 🤷♂️
I feel my comment was on your first paragraph, about talk getting is nowhere and how blood must be spilled
Yes, you were describing it as a call to arms, I’m saying it’s an inevitability and nothing in this forum will result in systemic change. I’m not going to keep discussing the issue further because I’ve already had one comment removed by a mod. If you think you can change things then go forth, I’m just trying to live my life without being told it’s good for me to pay attention to rich assholes.
I actually agree with you in theory! But in practice, the super rich seem to crave so much of our attention. We are all being inundated with their daily stream of consciousness and that’s what I’d love to help put a stop to.
For example, I truly believe that a certain manchild destroyed nearly 2 decades of brand recognition (twitter) just so he could take over the headlines yet again. I do not use his platform anymore, nor do I really care what he chooses to call it tomorrow.
People like that are not worth our brain cycles.
The headlines you so often see are driven by money and profits. When you see a headline you have no interest in, keep scrolling. It isn’t much different than lemmy. Poor, repetitive content will eventually sink to the bottom.
If you already know you’re not going to/can’t directly do anything about what they do anyway, every shred of attention they grab from you is a win for them and a loss for you. That’s personal, and anything that can be done about it, should be done. You’re going to hear enough about them to know to avoid their products and vote against them anyway.
You know market share, marketing tactics use “mind share”, this would work great against that.
Know they enemy for what? So we can continue doing nothing about it? This thread is full of lames.