Enshitification attributed to the fall of FTP services
Enshitification attributed to the fall of FTP services
cross-posted from !newrules@slrpnk.net : https://slrpnk.net/post/30020824
FTP servers always just worked. No bullshit, garbage, or hoops to go through. Governments are now distributing documents that should be public access to everyone, but just like the private sector web-distributed docs bring in an infinite number of enshitification possibilities which make document access limited and exclusive.
For example, see the 1st item on this post. HTML PDFs are sometimes not even real PDFs anymore.
Some people have lost access to legal statutes because some foolish backroom jackass working for the gov decided to proxy gov websites via Cloudflare.
The EU has an “open data” law and an “accessibility” law. It’s a good start but these laws are vague and easy to disregard and weasel-word out of enforcement. It’s likely impossible to define a law that captures all possible varieties of enshitification, dark patterns, and exclusivity of access.
I do not think there are many ways to fuckup anonymous FTP. An IP firewall is perhaps the only variety of shenanigan we might expect.
So new rule:
All government distributed docs must have an FTP distribution. Outsourced distribution still carries with it the FTP requirement. If the gov wants to also do an HTTP distro, fine. They can do whatever Cloudflare enshitified shenanigans they want and exploit the fact that countless pushovers will dance and solve CAPTCHAs. But there still must be an FTP pathway to all docs.
Future review:
Three years after enactment of this policy we will review and possibly consider allowing Gemini to be used in lieu of FTP.
I don't know about FTP, a useful and crawlable website is fine for me.
What I am much more taking issues with, is the use of proprietary file formats like the MS ones.
I maybe am overly critical, but in my opinion, public access should be access without any redundant payment requirements.
The problem with HTML is it gives too much freedom to the web developer who can enshitify it with proprietary JavaScript, CAPTCHAs, etc. Sure it is possible to implement interoperable non-enshitified HTML like this example:
http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/
But you cannot trust web devs to be responsible. And you cannot trust lawmakers to have the competency required to ban all the shitty things that can be done using HTML and JS. FTP is inherently limited so a bad admin cannot screw it up too much. It technologically protects us from enshitification.
Not sure what you mean by payment requirements. Govs distributing docs usually does not involve payment. Nonetheless, I want as many payment options as possible because even payment systems are enshitified. E.g. PayPal is a shit show by a controversial company with a long list of wrong doing.
By paying requirements I mean, that at least the German government sometimes still provides documents in Microsoft formats using macros, templates and design features, that are not supported by open source, or free alternatives.
In my opinion, every document provided by a city, a state, a country, should be available in the least expensive way and it is really no big hustle to turn MS stuff into open formats.
Regarding the HTML problem, I think everything can suck hard, if someone wants it to or doesn't care. But honestly I myself don't know how to address that in a useful way except for annoying people until they do things right.