Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up • Hacker News Board

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#61

Post by bepotts » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 2:34 PM UTC

noetic_techy wrote: post #4

I agree. Having trillion dollar valuation companies dominate the internet is akin to letting Standard Oil dominate a resource, or monopolies dominate the emergence of railroads. You have to recognize these technological emergence's when they occur, because typically they will be unlike anything we've seen before. I would argue Social Media is one of those emergence's. Smartphones arguably another. Ideally, I would li…

Silicon Valley is responsible for most of the world's innovation, so as a consumer I'd rather we not dictate where firms wanted to set up shop.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#62

Post by bilbo0s » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 2:35 PM UTC

neaden wrote: post #44

Balero wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is not with smart phones, but with the ecosystem around them. Eg, Apple, and iTunes. Android, and google docs

I think a good example is cars. Imagine having a Ford car that you could only get repaired at Ford dealerships, that only took Ford bumper stickers or other accessories, and only could get filled up with Ford gas at Ford gas stations. I think most people would agree that would be a problem, and we are getting dangerously close to that with smart phones.

What do you think of Tesla as a business and car company?

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#63

Post by thrower123 » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 2:35 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #28

supercanuck wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lower the barriers of entry for competition.

I think it's inevitable that Google EU will be split off from Alphabet and Google US, into a stand-alone entity that the Europeans will regulate and mold as they see fit. It's the only possible positive end to the way Europeans largely view Google today (an abusive, dominant, foreign invader they can't compete with). After this many years, it's obvious the EU can't mount a competitive threat to Google's search monopo…

In some ways, Google is already more powerful than the EU. I am not totally sure that the EU could ultimately force Google to do anything it didn't want to do; many of the things that have been implemented putatively to limit the Goog have had the (un?)intended consequences of raising the costs and barrier to entry for new competitors and further cementing their dominance...

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#64

Post by megous » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 2:35 PM UTC

choko wrote: post #25

exhaze wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's actually been working on solving that exact problem: https://www.fastcompany.com/90243936/exclusive-tim-berners-l...

It's interesting that he is pushing the decentralization concept while at the same time decrying hate speech on the web. Wouldn't a non-centralized version of the web make it harder to police said speech? As a disclaimer, I am not advocating the policing of speech in any way and am against that concept.

You wouldn't be able to control what people publish on their own devices, but for those people to be able to spread their (unwanted) content would be presumably harder.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#65

Post by bepotts » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 2:35 PM UTC

arendtio wrote: post #20

I am not sure, but sometimes I think splitting the companies is not even what we need. Instead, companies with > $1 billion annual revenue should be bound by law to built federated platforms and provide the software to participate in such a network. I mean, you could split up Google into Search, Youtube, and Mail. But in the end, Youtube would still use Analytics and provide Search with all the data they need for the…

Who in the world would trust Donald Trump to manage search across the entire internet?

You'd think that after the Trump administration the nation would have a greater appreciation for federalism and a smaller administrative state.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#66

Post by macintux » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

choko wrote: post #25

exhaze wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's actually been working on solving that exact problem: https://www.fastcompany.com/90243936/exclusive-tim-berners-l...

It's interesting that he is pushing the decentralization concept while at the same time decrying hate speech on the web. Wouldn't a non-centralized version of the web make it harder to police said speech? As a disclaimer, I am not advocating the policing of speech in any way and am against that concept.

It's not clear that he's decrying hate speech so much as decrying the amplification effect on it that the current state of the tech world enables.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#67

Post by dasil003 » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

majani wrote: post #39

I think the main issue that has allowed the likes of Google and Facebook to grow to a dangerous size is the ability to scale globally with minimal resistance from other countries. As time goes by, I start to realize that China's great firewall may have had some visionary thinking behind it, and other countries may follow suit in future to enable their citizens to take part in the digital revolution.

I don’t think anyone would argue the GFW is not visionary, the question is what kind of vision?

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#68

Post by nakedrobot2 » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

They don't have to be broken up, they need to stop being morally bankrupt.

Nothing about Facebook's size dictates that they needed to:

- Allow their platform to be abused by misinformation campaigns, because it pays well (thereby allowing Trump to win)

- Allow hate groups to flourish

- Allow anti-vax groups to grow and flourish

- Allow nutty conspiracy groups to flourish

- Help dictatorships with their genocide

It's simply because they are morally bankrupt by design and by culture.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#69

Post by gist » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

zackkatz wrote: post #2

I suggest the title be changed to remove “Father of Web”. “Tim Berners-Lee says…” is better.

I actually have a big issue when the news runs stories like this to begin with. They would do the same btw if Woz said it or any other well known person. Sure the fact they can tag on 'father of the web' gives a strong pull but that is part of the problem. His thoughts on this aren't any more important than thousands of others that nobody has ever heard of. This is a total 'news as entertainment' story. And this has nothing to do with whether I agree or disagree with what he is saying. I just don't like prominence given solely based on some prior achievement which quite frankly has no bearing on what he is saying today.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#70

Post by bilbo0s » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 2:38 PM UTC

WC3w6pXxgGd wrote: post #55

arendtio wrote: post #20

I am not sure, but sometimes I think splitting the companies is not even what we need. Instead, companies with > $1 billion annual revenue should be bound by law to built federated platforms and provide the software to participate in such a network. I mean, you could split up Google into Search, Youtube, and Mail. But in the end, Youtube would still use Analytics and provide Search with all the data they need for the…

Why do you trust governments so much?

To be fair, all sides trust the government.

We're trusting the government to go in and properly split up a company. Or you're trusting the government to properly regulate a company.

The people who don't trust the government, don't want the government to take ANY action. They believe the market will solve the problem.