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 π . 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 π).
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.
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.
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.
I can see a (theoretically) positive outcome in media realizing that these articles donβt 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.