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>Twitter, Facebook and Google need to be treated like utilities [...] Our generation is reinventing the wheel here, our ancestors had exactly the same problems

>Twitter, Facebook and Google need to be treated like utilities [...] Our generation is reinventing the wheel here, our ancestors had exactly the same problems with the power, water, gas, telephone and rail networks (at some point in time, all those were unregulated and privately owned) and did exactly that. Critical infrastructure needs to be heavily, regulated if not outright publicly owned.

emteycz 6y ago
Sure, let's make the public alternative, but I am strongly against taking over businesses.
- llampx 6y ago
  I am strongly for taking over businesses which are de facto monopolies.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    If your public alternative can't win the users then "breaking the monopoly" will worsen the user experience. I don't want to live in that world - consider Telegram, a much better experience than WhatsApp, and it won over many users already. Evidently the monopoly is not as strong as is suggested. Telegram might not exist if there was a risk of losing the company. I don't want to be stuck with bad public software. In reality, when you destroy WhatsApp, people won't use the bad software, they will go to the next player and make it a "monopoly" because it most likely will be a better user experience.
    - PeterStuer 6y ago
      Network externalities in communication networks make it so that you can create a 10x better application and still have 0 chance of competing.
    - llampx 6y ago
      At every step of the way, Facebook has leveraged its size and existing troves of data to undermine and buy out the competition. The goals of Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Google are the same - world domination. Same as any mega conglomerate of years past. The difference now is tech scale and the willingness of regulators to allow it to happen.
      - emteycz 6y ago
        Then how come my entire family and most friends use Telegram now?
        CRConrad 6y ago
        Network effect and evangelism — i.e. you. How come the absolutely, humongously overwhelming majority of families and friend groups don't use Telegram, but WhatsApp?
hkt 6y ago
Amen. Not to forget the things that were in co-operative ownership, either.
fart32 6y ago
I don't like the idea of government having full control of these services. I believe that we need fully decentralized system, much like the e-mail, but realtime and E2EE. Sadly, it seems to me that we're taking the opposite direction. Just few widely used messengers, all of them are centralized, some of them have E2EE, but who knows for how long - EU commission seems to like the idea of breaking in. No matter what their intentions are, I didn't sign up for that.
- Shacklz 6y ago
  In essence I agree with you, but let's not forget that in most countries, the government has already complete (albeit strongly regulated) control and access to postal services and everything that is sent through them, and I think most citizens (me included) are okay with that as well. Furthermore; I'd much rather have the government spying in my stuff than Facebook selling my data to the highest bidder; at least if that were my only two choices.
  - fart32 6y ago
    > and everything that is sent through them Are you seriously comparing letters and private IM conversations? I don't know about you, but I received/sent maybe 5 letters in last 10 years, none of which were from/to another private entity. > I'd much rather have the government spying I consider this very short sighted and dangerours, but that's your choice. > at least if that were my only two choices Those are not your only two choices, that's kinda my point. We actually don't have to choose between a greedy company or a state. The only decision people need to make is centralized or decentralized system.
    - distances 6y ago
      I think this trust difference is a general division between Europe and US. Europeans generally trust their governments more than private companies, and vice versa in the US. I would assume both have valid reasons for this on their own side of the pond. For what it's worth, I too would trust the government a whole lot more than Facebook.
rorykoehler 6y ago
I wrote a tweet thread about this which I will post here for convenience: Consolidation is a debt. You gain market cap at the cost of introducing systemic weakness and reducing broader market innovation. Once a company becomes a fundamental service they need to be regulated like a utility (I will illustrate with Facebook) Facebook can get the license to operate it but they also need to open up their API’s so others can build on top. These should become web standards governed by w3c. Facebook is an interesting case as this system would remove all the perverse incentives driving their business model (no more ads). It would also crash their stock. That value hasn’t disappeared though, it has been pushed out to the edge nodes of their network (specifically the companies building on top of their API’s). My thesis is that this model will increase the overall pot while reducing the share the largest players have. The knock-on effect of this is that investors will see this as the final outcome and be less incentivised to invest. That may be a problem as we don’t want to stop the emergence of billion scale companies altogether. Therefore a mechanism for the people to buy out the company at a fair legally agreed market value should be in place. This will stop crazy upsides and protect the undesirable downsides. The asset then becomes publicly owned but privately operated according to regulations. AI would fall under the same model. With open API’s and standards anyone can get the data they need to build new AI companies. Especially feasible if we move towards self-sovereign identities and crypto methods of exchange. To facilitate more small tech innovation we need to introduce a UBI. It will allow more people take risks with their time leading to more cottage innovation. In 100 years it will be a fundamental aspect of fiscal policy. Additionally education needs to be refocused on making things. People are not equipped with the skills to build things. There is no better way to learn, grow and generate value. If we want a diversified small tech eco-system economy we need to focus on helping people develop the skills that make it possible.
Ygg2 6y ago
I disagree. Facebook, Twitter and Google are ephemeral utilities. They will probably be replaced by another company. Privatizing them will just let someone else come along and Embrace, extend, extinguish them.
- Closi 6y ago
  > They will probably be replaced by another company Nobody has a chance, but different reasons in each company: * What we have seen with Google - For a search engine, the more traffic you get the better results you can give (you can A-B test different algorithms for different queries, and optimise results). For new entrants they need to be popular before they can be better, which is a catch-22. Additionally Google has significant revenue which is very profitable because of it's monopoly position, and it can use this to reinvest in search technology to further widen the gap. It's going to take more than 2 people in a garage to beat modern Google at search! * For a social network, Facebook buy out any potential competition when it's gaining traction to further solidify their monopoly. See WhatsApp, Instagram, Friend.ly e.t.c.
  - Ygg2 6y ago
    > For a search engine, the more traffic you get the better results you can give Lately I have been noticing the opposite trend. Google search relevance is going downhil for me. I'm not sure when that started but I noticed it in 2019-ish last two years. Youtube search is so bad (note: I have history disabled), I rely on Google to search YouTube. Playing cat and mouse with SEO seems to have taken its toll. I find myself going to DDG and Bing a few times a week. Before it was only Google. > For a social network, Facebook buy out any potential competition when it's gaining traction to further solidify their monopoly. Maybe, but each of those competitors is essentially a fad, and Facebook forcing WhatsApp users to login via Facebook, to me seems more like desperate move, than anything else. I agree those acquisitions are IMO problematic, but I am not sure if they are strengthening Facebook, or killing it with a thousand cuts.
- llampx 6y ago
  Them going out of business in 60 years doesn't mean we have to sit on our hands now.
alex_duf 6y ago
I think similarly to how europe has forced Banks to interoperate by making them write a protocol that can interoperate, governments need to force social media companies to write down a protocol and use it. I like the analogy with utilities, but the issue is that we pay for electricity, but we don't pay for our usage of social media. As long as that's true we can difficulty do what I'm suggesting above
- simfoo 6y ago
  Exactly that. There needs to be a mandated federation protocol for instant messenger apps that have lets say > 10 million user in the EU.
- vinay427 6y ago
  I think India's Unified Payments Interface is a better analogy here. From what I understand (as an outsider, so based only on what I've read) it provides a universal API for mobile applications to interface with banks, essentially standardizing the federation of bank transfers. Therefore, your account at bank X can be used to pay an account at bank Y for some service that uses app Z. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface
  - CRConrad 6y ago
    Why would that be a better analogy than the European system that allows you to do the exact same thing?

emteycz 6y ago

Sure, let's make the public alternative, but I am strongly against taking over businesses.

llampx 6y ago
I am strongly for taking over businesses which are de facto monopolies.
- emteycz 6y ago
  If your public alternative can't win the users then "breaking the monopoly" will worsen the user experience. I don't want to live in that world - consider Telegram, a much better experience than WhatsApp, and it won over many users already. Evidently the monopoly is not as strong as is suggested. Telegram might not exist if there was a risk of losing the company. I don't want to be stuck with bad public software. In reality, when you destroy WhatsApp, people won't use the bad software, they will go to the next player and make it a "monopoly" because it most likely will be a better user experience.
  - PeterStuer 6y ago
    Network externalities in communication networks make it so that you can create a 10x better application and still have 0 chance of competing.
  - llampx 6y ago
    At every step of the way, Facebook has leveraged its size and existing troves of data to undermine and buy out the competition. The goals of Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Google are the same - world domination. Same as any mega conglomerate of years past. The difference now is tech scale and the willingness of regulators to allow it to happen.
    - emteycz 6y ago
      Then how come my entire family and most friends use Telegram now?
      - CRConrad 6y ago
        Network effect and evangelism — i.e. you. How come the absolutely, humongously overwhelming majority of families and friend groups don't use Telegram, but WhatsApp?

hkt 6y ago

Amen. Not to forget the things that were in co-operative ownership, either.

fart32 6y ago

I don't like the idea of government having full control of these services. I believe that we need fully decentralized system, much like the e-mail, but realtime and E2EE. Sadly, it seems to me that we're taking the opposite direction. Just few widely used messengers, all of them are centralized, some of them have E2EE, but who knows for how long - EU commission seems to like the idea of breaking in. No matter what their intentions are, I didn't sign up for that.

Shacklz 6y ago
In essence I agree with you, but let's not forget that in most countries, the government has already complete (albeit strongly regulated) control and access to postal services and everything that is sent through them, and I think most citizens (me included) are okay with that as well. Furthermore; I'd much rather have the government spying in my stuff than Facebook selling my data to the highest bidder; at least if that were my only two choices.
- fart32 6y ago
  > and everything that is sent through them Are you seriously comparing letters and private IM conversations? I don't know about you, but I received/sent maybe 5 letters in last 10 years, none of which were from/to another private entity. > I'd much rather have the government spying I consider this very short sighted and dangerours, but that's your choice. > at least if that were my only two choices Those are not your only two choices, that's kinda my point. We actually don't have to choose between a greedy company or a state. The only decision people need to make is centralized or decentralized system.
  - distances 6y ago
    I think this trust difference is a general division between Europe and US. Europeans generally trust their governments more than private companies, and vice versa in the US. I would assume both have valid reasons for this on their own side of the pond. For what it's worth, I too would trust the government a whole lot more than Facebook.

rorykoehler 6y ago

I wrote a tweet thread about this which I will post here for convenience: Consolidation is a debt. You gain market cap at the cost of introducing systemic weakness and reducing broader market innovation. Once a company becomes a fundamental service they need to be regulated like a utility (I will illustrate with Facebook) Facebook can get the license to operate it but they also need to open up their API’s so others can build on top. These should become web standards governed by w3c. Facebook is an interesting case as this system would remove all the perverse incentives driving their business model (no more ads). It would also crash their stock. That value hasn’t disappeared though, it has been pushed out to the edge nodes of their network (specifically the companies building on top of their API’s). My thesis is that this model will increase the overall pot while reducing the share the largest players have. The knock-on effect of this is that investors will see this as the final outcome and be less incentivised to invest. That may be a problem as we don’t want to stop the emergence of billion scale companies altogether. Therefore a mechanism for the people to buy out the company at a fair legally agreed market value should be in place. This will stop crazy upsides and protect the undesirable downsides. The asset then becomes publicly owned but privately operated according to regulations. AI would fall under the same model. With open API’s and standards anyone can get the data they need to build new AI companies. Especially feasible if we move towards self-sovereign identities and crypto methods of exchange. To facilitate more small tech innovation we need to introduce a UBI. It will allow more people take risks with their time leading to more cottage innovation. In 100 years it will be a fundamental aspect of fiscal policy. Additionally education needs to be refocused on making things. People are not equipped with the skills to build things. There is no better way to learn, grow and generate value. If we want a diversified small tech eco-system economy we need to focus on helping people develop the skills that make it possible.

Ygg2 6y ago

I disagree. Facebook, Twitter and Google are ephemeral utilities. They will probably be replaced by another company. Privatizing them will just let someone else come along and Embrace, extend, extinguish them.

Closi 6y ago
> They will probably be replaced by another company Nobody has a chance, but different reasons in each company: * What we have seen with Google - For a search engine, the more traffic you get the better results you can give (you can A-B test different algorithms for different queries, and optimise results). For new entrants they need to be popular before they can be better, which is a catch-22. Additionally Google has significant revenue which is very profitable because of it's monopoly position, and it can use this to reinvest in search technology to further widen the gap. It's going to take more than 2 people in a garage to beat modern Google at search! * For a social network, Facebook buy out any potential competition when it's gaining traction to further solidify their monopoly. See WhatsApp, Instagram, Friend.ly e.t.c.
- Ygg2 6y ago
  > For a search engine, the more traffic you get the better results you can give Lately I have been noticing the opposite trend. Google search relevance is going downhil for me. I'm not sure when that started but I noticed it in 2019-ish last two years. Youtube search is so bad (note: I have history disabled), I rely on Google to search YouTube. Playing cat and mouse with SEO seems to have taken its toll. I find myself going to DDG and Bing a few times a week. Before it was only Google. > For a social network, Facebook buy out any potential competition when it's gaining traction to further solidify their monopoly. Maybe, but each of those competitors is essentially a fad, and Facebook forcing WhatsApp users to login via Facebook, to me seems more like desperate move, than anything else. I agree those acquisitions are IMO problematic, but I am not sure if they are strengthening Facebook, or killing it with a thousand cuts.
llampx 6y ago
Them going out of business in 60 years doesn't mean we have to sit on our hands now.

alex_duf 6y ago

I think similarly to how europe has forced Banks to interoperate by making them write a protocol that can interoperate, governments need to force social media companies to write down a protocol and use it. I like the analogy with utilities, but the issue is that we pay for electricity, but we don't pay for our usage of social media. As long as that's true we can difficulty do what I'm suggesting above

simfoo 6y ago
Exactly that. There needs to be a mandated federation protocol for instant messenger apps that have lets say > 10 million user in the EU.
vinay427 6y ago
I think India's Unified Payments Interface is a better analogy here. From what I understand (as an outsider, so based only on what I've read) it provides a universal API for mobile applications to interface with banks, essentially standardizing the federation of bank transfers. Therefore, your account at bank X can be used to pay an account at bank Y for some service that uses app Z. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface
- CRConrad 6y ago
  Why would that be a better analogy than the European system that allows you to do the exact same thing?