Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay
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Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay
#2I think I missed the point because I don't understand what this article is trying to say exactly.
Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay
#3I think I missed the point because I don't understand what this article is trying to say exactly.
The article is a meandering and muddles it point but here's the paragraph where the actual point is made:
In 2001, an eBay user might have given an eBay seller a low rating for an unsatisfactory packaging job; in 2018, an Uber driver might be dinged if a rider doesn’t like his personality or choice of music. Facebook recently began ranking publishers by trustworthiness, based on feedback from users. Upon discovering a problem, a platform company’s first instinct is to find a way to expose it to the wisdom of a market, or at least the will of a crowd.
It’s a transactional platform; the transaction is very clear to both sides,” Hagiu says. “By and large, buyers and sellers are aligned on eBay.” A seller banned for counterfeit sunglasses hasn’t lost any rights, just his ability to use eBay. Crucially, to most ears, a scammer’s claims to the contrary would sound ridiculous.
The article's view on what ails the internet is the flawed idea of "wisdom of the crowd". The recommendation based systems where companies say - "others watched/read this so, you must like it too".
But then the article presents Amazon as something better and conveniently forgets that Amazon too has a similar ratings system. Though only the product level reviews are front and center. Seller reviews do not take the limelight. And as evident by Amazon's glut of fake products this weakness of rating systems is being gamed too.
Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay
#4I think I missed the point because I don't understand what this article is trying to say exactly.
The article is a meandering and muddles it point but here's the paragraph where the actual point is made: In 2001, an eBay user might have given an eBay seller a low rating for an unsatisfactory packaging job; in 2018, an Uber driver might be dinged if a rider doesn’t like his personality or choice of music. Facebook recently began ranking publishers by trustworthiness, based on feedback from users. Upon discovering…
Also this:
> But quite often [Facebook is] managed like [a marketplace], because in many ways, that’s exactly what it is: a giant, multisided marketplace for buying and selling, in which the largest party — the users — doesn’t do the buying or the selling. A social network’s profitable transactions involve everyone but the users. Ad rates are even determined, in many cases, by auction. If eBay is a machine for finding the right price for a pair of shoes, Facebook — behind the veneer of enabling human connection — is a machine for discovering the right price for a pair of eyeballs. Your eyeballs.
Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay
#5I think I missed the point because I don't understand what this article is trying to say exactly.
The article is a meandering and muddles it point but here's the paragraph where the actual point is made: In 2001, an eBay user might have given an eBay seller a low rating for an unsatisfactory packaging job; in 2018, an Uber driver might be dinged if a rider doesn’t like his personality or choice of music. Facebook recently began ranking publishers by trustworthiness, based on feedback from users. Upon discovering…
The other point was sites are often trying to address social issues with market solutions. Facebook's mission is social connection but its profit is attention bidding.
Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay
#6>Peter Thiel — an early Facebook investor and board member — with his funding of lawsuits against media companies and his eclectic and severe right-wing politics.
The take away of Thiel glaringly missed Palantir in favor of some digs.
Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay
#7Why do the style guides of these large organisations often insist on the ludicrous capitalisation of "EBay" when it appears at the start of a sentence?
Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay
#8On the other hand, it's a drag that there isn't something like Yelp for FLOSS.
I would have loved to see a rating and some reviews of several development processes before wasting my time posting patches.
Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay
#9>Peter Thiel — an early Facebook investor and board member — with his funding of lawsuits against media companies and his eclectic and severe right-wing politics. The take away of Thiel glaringly missed Palantir in favor of some digs.
Eclectic and severe right-wing politics? Awfully colorful way to describe him in an article which isn’t an editorial.
Would love to see the NYT describing a left winger as eclectic and severe. Even masked antifa don’t get that treatment.
It’s frustrating to have to mentally guard against this political mudslinging. The article is worse for it, and IMO it’s just coddling their readership and narrowing their audience.
Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay
#10On the other hand, it's a drag that there isn't something like Yelp for FLOSS. I would have loved to see a rating and some reviews of several development processes before wasting my time posting patches.
I'm getting pretty good at working that out.
Note that this isn't a dig at any particular project, I know FOSS is hard and free time is scarce (and so is funding).
Quick ones:
1. Date of last commit to main repo
2. Number of issues open on Trac/Bugzilla/GitHub/Jira whatever (note, I'm taking a point off if you use Trac, only because there's still an instance from 10 years ago sending me emails that I can't unsubscribe from)
Takes more time:
3. Number of open pull requests/mailing list patches and general discussion around them
4. Any kind of clear and updated roadmap.
Edit: number one these days should be an up to date and working CI/CD system with published artifacts, including for Windows.