>Nonsense. Google implements censorship of various URLs[1]. My friends in China often complained that the Great Firewall would censor not only search terms but also URLs.

>I think you're underestimating how much censorship already exists.

And you completely failed to understand what it was that I called impractical. I said that RMS' suggestion for removing censorship was impractical for a downstream consumer of search results from other providers, which DDG is. Do I think think that censorship is bad, and removing it is good? Yes. But RMS' suggestion is non-viable.

>Really? How do you know that? Are you simply assuming that or do you actually have evidence?

What percentage of your searches list DMCA removals? If your on HN, that's probably higher than average. There is some invisible censorship as well, but even then, how much would you guess that would increase the number? Sure, it is technically easy to censor, but who would have the motivation to go around censoring 90% of the kind of things people search for on the internet. Recipies? Facts? News articles? Please. The thoght police have more important matters on their hands.

>Defending tomorrow's freedom, might require that you make a sacrifice today. Do you want to pay the cost of that sacrifice now, or in the future when the fight is even harder and much larger sacrifices are required?

Fair enough. I would be willing. You know who wouldn't? End users. An extra second or more per search? All but the most hardcore of DDG users - yes, even those who understood why - would go back to google. And DDG has a minute market share already. What do you think is better, I wonder? More protection of freedoms, with reasonable tradeoffs, and maybe even some other advantages (!bangs and instant answers are pretty cool), or absolute protection of freedoms, with unnacceptable performance tradoffs that make everyday activities and excercise an agony? Whichever you prefer, it doesn't matter, because the End User population prefers the former, and they're the ones who drive the industry.

>Unless you defend principles even when it is inconvenient, they will be stolen or corrupted by anybody willing to "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish"[2] your principles for a profit.

I always thought embrace, extend, exterminate had a better ring to it. And actually, you're wrong. If you build a cool thing that is superglued to its principles, to the point of being slow and hard to use, people won't use it. Someone without principles will take your idea, and leave your potential users less secure than if you has just been a bit more practical.

I don't have a problem with defending my principles when it's inconvenient - I run archlinux without systemd - but that's not what this is about. You don't seem to realize that.

When you build something for mass consumption, you have to balance practical useability with your principles, or you will end up like so many FSF projects that nobody uses.

What do I mean by that? When was the last time you used iceweasel? linux-libre? Gnu social? Gnu Librejs?

These are all projects that I can admire for sticking to their principles, but for most people, they are criplingly complex to use, or lack important features, or seem pointless, or create more problems then they solve, or do things nobody wanted, or solve problems that are solved simpler, faster, and better by other software.

For most people "free software," or "open source" isn't a selling point: it's a bonus.