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!

  • Someonelol@lemmy.mlEnglish
    185·
    11 months ago

    Please don’t do this! Rich people love living in obscurity, it keeps attention and anger from their stupid decisions away from them and on to some scapegoat. This is like the opposite of the Streisand Effect and will only serve their interests. I know it’s annoying to keep seeing the same billionaires in the headlines but the alternative is to be passive about their awful projects and the harm they’re doing to the world. You’ll only be doing them a favor with this addon.

    • marmo7ade@lemmy.worldEnglish
      81·
      11 months ago

      The issue is context and nuance. You can’t set binary rules around what content you want to see, unless you do want to be willfully ignorant of the world around you. Which is what it seems OP wants to do.

      Do I want to know when Elon Musk names his 23rd child a random string of characters? No.

      Do I want to know when Elon Musk buys a company and runs it into the ground? Yes.

      • klyde@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        11 months ago

        So disable it when you want to. Y’all are making this way too complicated for no reason.

    • salient_one@lemmy.villa-straylight.socialEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      Except Musk. Musk loves any kind of publicity and he understands that people love to look at clown billionaires. It’s a great disarming tactic. The public sees him as that harmless prankster and not a threat.

    • klyde@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      11 months ago

      Nah that’s alright. It’s not like we can do anything about them anyway. I’m just going to ignore them.