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Manifestos and Monopolies

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Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#11

Post by monkbent »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #10
castle-bravo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it could also be described as a bait-and-switch. > You think MZ's vision of replacing democratic institutions with facebook is a bad idea? Me too! becomes > Let me point out to you all the ways that MZ's intentions are good. I guess he's really a nice guy and we should trust him to provide a replacement for a failing democracy. Personally, I can't get behind it, no matter how nuanced the rhetorical strategy u…

It's an articulation of the general versus the specific. He's saying the general idea underpinning Zuckerberg's manifesto is concerning. He's just personally okay given it's specifically Zuckerberg manning the helm. (Separately, he says Facebook is in a good economic position. That's a separate train of thought from the manifesto discussion.)

I have no idea how you guys are getting the impression I'm ok with Zuckerberg's stated goals here. I think I was pretty clear on that point at least!

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#12

Post by TimJYoung »

The author lost me here:

"it is a reflection of the fundamental reality that the supply of content (and increasingly goods) is infinite, and thus worthless"

No, the supply of worthless content is infinite. The supply of interesting content provided by professionals with the backgrounds necessary to provide such content is not. This is why you still see the majority of journalistic content provided by a small number of organizations, with the rest simply aggregating that content. Facebook, Google, etc. actually produce very little cultural value on their own. Their entire existence is predicated on co-opting the content of others for free and using it to make money. It's a heck of a business model, if you can get away with it, but let's stop pretending that good content just appears out of thin air...

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#13

Post by notdonspaulding »

monkbent wrote: post #11
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an articulation of the general versus the specific. He's saying the general idea underpinning Zuckerberg's manifesto is concerning. He's just personally okay given it's specifically Zuckerberg manning the helm. (Separately, he says Facebook is in a good economic position. That's a separate train of thought from the manifesto discussion.)

I have no idea how you guys are getting the impression I'm ok with Zuckerberg's stated goals here. I think I was pretty clear on that point at least!

You were, I had no trouble picking up on it at least.

It seems to me that this battle was really lost several years ago when Google unsuccessfully tried to maintain the ability to "export your social graph" from FB. What's your feeling on how things would have played out differently if at that time FB lost its control over people's social graphs?

It seems to me that if you have to legislate a solution here, writing a law that guaranteed you could export your personal data from any company would be a good place to start. What do you think?

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#14

Post by tribune »

TimJYoung wrote: post #12

The author lost me here: "it is a reflection of the fundamental reality that the supply of content (and increasingly goods) is infinite, and thus worthless" No, the supply of worthless content is infinite. The supply of interesting content provided by professionals with the backgrounds necessary to provide such content is not. This is why you still see the majority of journalistic content provided by a small number o…

I agree. I think in the future we will probably see a modest decline in demand for "worthless" content as consumers seek higher-quality variants

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#15

Post by pipio21 »

coldcode wrote: post #3

I use FB to keep in touch with friends who mostly live far from me. That's all I really want, but that makes FB no money. What I wish I could do was build exactly that because in the end that's what most people really care about; however there is exactly zero money to do this sort of thing since FB has basically cornered the market in connecting people. The basic question is: would you pay $1 a month to keep in touch…

"The basic question is: would you pay $1 a month to keep in touch with friends without ads?"

No, I would pay hundreds of dollars to keep in touch with friends without external entities stalking-spying my interactions with them.

Not just friends but employees and partners. I want a communication channel that is mine, not American, NSA owned.

I mean I already pay thousands of dollars a year inviting friends to my house, to the restaurant, organizing trips to cities like Paris or Venice or St. Petersburg with them.

In each of those interactions, there is no microphone recording anything I say, a video camera controlling all of my movements.

But FB is increasingly taking all the information, for example storing trip pictures becoming a private archive of people's lives bigger and more dangerous than Stasi as they are developing in fact private life dossiers that could be used against anyone when for example you run for competing against the people in power.

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#16

Post by oooglaaa »

tribune wrote: post #14
TimJYoung wrote: post #12

The author lost me here: "it is a reflection of the fundamental reality that the supply of content (and increasingly goods) is infinite, and thus worthless" No, the supply of worthless content is infinite. The supply of interesting content provided by professionals with the backgrounds necessary to provide such content is not. This is why you still see the majority of journalistic content provided by a small number o…

I agree. I think in the future we will probably see a modest decline in demand for "worthless" content as consumers seek higher-quality variants

Exactly this. My facebook newsfeed is full of worthless content, which, though once fun and interesting is now a commodity (cat videos, for example)

As someone in my mid twenties, I spend far more time on instagram and snapchat than on facebook. If facebook was to disappear tomorrow, it'd probably be okay with me. Imagine for a second if Facebook hadn't acquired Instagram. Attention shifts very quickly in the digital world, quicker than a lot of people think.

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#17

Post by kaspm »

tribune wrote: post #14
TimJYoung wrote: post #12

The author lost me here: "it is a reflection of the fundamental reality that the supply of content (and increasingly goods) is infinite, and thus worthless" No, the supply of worthless content is infinite. The supply of interesting content provided by professionals with the backgrounds necessary to provide such content is not. This is why you still see the majority of journalistic content provided by a small number o…

I agree. I think in the future we will probably see a modest decline in demand for "worthless" content as consumers seek higher-quality variants

I think we're already seeing this in regards to YouTube monetization, there are a few YouTubers at the top of the pyramid making money and their content is increasingly "professional" - albeit with an air of amateur needed to connect to audiences. But the rest of the pyramid has collapsed and with it the MCN industry built on the idea that there was monetization scale in crappy content.

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#18

Post by erikpukinskis »

TimJYoung wrote: post #12

The author lost me here: "it is a reflection of the fundamental reality that the supply of content (and increasingly goods) is infinite, and thus worthless" No, the supply of worthless content is infinite. The supply of interesting content provided by professionals with the backgrounds necessary to provide such content is not. This is why you still see the majority of journalistic content provided by a small number o…

> you still see the majority of journalistic content provided by a small number of organizations

Do I? Or do I see major stories broken by a larger and larger number of small organizations?

I legitimately don't know. Both stories sound true to me. What makes you believe yours?

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#19

Post by Demoneeri »

oooglaaa wrote: post #16
tribune wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I think in the future we will probably see a modest decline in demand for "worthless" content as consumers seek higher-quality variants

Exactly this. My facebook newsfeed is full of worthless content, which, though once fun and interesting is now a commodity (cat videos, for example) As someone in my mid twenties, I spend far more time on instagram and snapchat than on facebook. If facebook was to disappear tomorrow, it'd probably be okay with me. Imagine for a second if Facebook hadn't acquired Instagram. Attention shifts very quickly in the digital…

If your Facebook feed is worthless, it's your fault. Either you have nobody you care about or you like worthless stuff. I'm connected with family and friends, I'm following interesting people and liked interesting pages. My newsfeed is full of great content, from people I care about or page with content I want to read/watch.

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#20

Post by criddell »

TimJYoung wrote: post #12

The author lost me here: "it is a reflection of the fundamental reality that the supply of content (and increasingly goods) is infinite, and thus worthless" No, the supply of worthless content is infinite. The supply of interesting content provided by professionals with the backgrounds necessary to provide such content is not. This is why you still see the majority of journalistic content provided by a small number o…

Isn't he saying that the marginal cost of showing an article to one more person is approximately zero?
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