Let's put this in stark but realistic terms. The cost of what Mozilla et al are planning is that we will lose almost all of the archives of the web. A massive bit-burning, which is just as awful as it sounds. #
It's as if the pharma industry decided to delete all their records going back to the beginning of drug research. Except it isn't the industry doing it, it's a few large companies.#
And the web doesn't even belong to the industry. It belongs to no one.#
There's an implicit public trust with having the dominant web browser. Except the public hasn't yet understood how important and valuable that trust is. And of course the companies will take whatever they can.#
My friend blogdiva calls this colonialism and I think she's right.#
PS: What alerted to me how crazy this has gotten, they're talking about how to break JavaScript on non-HTTPS connections. I use JS for plenty of stuff that never touches the net. #