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

reuters.com

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

#221

Post by Xixi »

nine_k wrote: post #203
Sileni wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the comment you're replying to is trying to strengthen that ability. Now you don't have to convince some critical mass of your friends to switch over; you just switch over to the new platform, which everyone is connected to via some open source API/protocol, or the company running the data service is not running a front end to present the data. You continue to get the data from your friends and family while u…

My point is exactly not having to impose regulation. The power to move away is already in the people's hands. You can do it at any moment, without a governmental mandate. The point is to use this power. But first people have to recognize their power, and learn to use it a bit.

When AT&T was a monopoly and you had to rent your phone from them at an outrageous price, you could also walk away. But having to either walk/drive around or send slow mail to communicate was not very efficient. Perfectly doable, mind you, but very inconvenient. Sometimes the cost of walking away is just too steep, so abusing a dominant position becomes very easy and tempting.

I don't think Twitter or Facebook are anywhere close to that threshold. Maybe that's just because I barely use them. But I'm sure some people were also not using phone in the seventies, so I won't conclude based on my individual case.

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

#222

Post by dkonofalski »

nine_k wrote: post #170
zug_zug wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose tech companies were no longer legally allowed to use the network effect (i.e. they had to provide open-access to their public data via API). Then this would enable alternative front-ends on twitter. This would then enable me to filter messages by positivity, or whichever criteria I choose (e.g. non-Russian-bots, non-shills). This is turn would then change the whole ecosystem. It would remove the perverse ince…

I think that people have an (almost) unalienable power, very strong, and pretty underused. It's the power of walking away. If you find an environment toxic, leave it, and ask your friends to leave it, too. Yes, you have to research alternatives first, and make compromises, at least temporarily. Lately this somehow worked for Facebook. I bet they are going to see that on their bottom line. So, if you dislike the outra…

This is the part that I don't understand. Facebook, in the grand scheme of things, is still an incredibly new development for people. Most users (at least those who abide by the age limit) have spent most of their lives not being on Facebook. What grand utility does Facebook provide that makes it so difficult to stop using it? I cancelled my Facebook account a few years ago and the only time I ever even thought about it was when I'd try to sign in to services (like Spotify) that were linked to my account at one time and it got reactivated through that. I'd have to login and cancel the account again.

What is it about Facebook that has suddenly and inexplicably turned it into a necessity for people when they lived for so long without it? It's not like a cell phone or other technology that has massive utility. Most people don't even communicate via Facebook (from what I hear). They just post divisive nonsense.

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

#223

Post by sumeno »

OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #152
celticninja wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use Facebook, I presume thats the level of adoption you are talking about.

Many people don't use facebook. I thinks WhatsApp is a better example, it's even more ubiquitous, though I'm sure there are still people who don't use it. Heck, I'm personally thinking of stopping, it's just that everyone is there. Two of my recent orders were negotiated by WhatsApp. It's used almost universally.

WhatsApp isn't even close to as ubiquitous as Facebook. WhatsApp has about 1.5 billion monthly active users compared to Facebook's 2.1 billion.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/260819/number-of-monthly...

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

#224

Post by francisofascii »

nine_k wrote: post #173
francisofascii wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a time limit on how long they can have exclusive rights to the network? Like a patent.

How about a limit on how long you have exclusive rights on a house you built, and did not sell? Okay, how about the exclusive rights on your blog that attracted a million subscribers? Should a government agency regulate what you post there? I'm afraid this is a slippery slope leading to things far more dangerous than we have now.

I agree it could be a slippery slope but we are nowhere near it today. A published work copyright expires 70 years after the author dies, or something similar. That would probably apply to a blog post. 70 years post death is pretty reasonable. Not sure what a reasonable number for a network would be, but I think "forever" is excessive in the other direction.

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

#225

Post by travmatt »

nine_k wrote: post #170
zug_zug wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose tech companies were no longer legally allowed to use the network effect (i.e. they had to provide open-access to their public data via API). Then this would enable alternative front-ends on twitter. This would then enable me to filter messages by positivity, or whichever criteria I choose (e.g. non-Russian-bots, non-shills). This is turn would then change the whole ecosystem. It would remove the perverse ince…

I think that people have an (almost) unalienable power, very strong, and pretty underused. It's the power of walking away. If you find an environment toxic, leave it, and ask your friends to leave it, too. Yes, you have to research alternatives first, and make compromises, at least temporarily. Lately this somehow worked for Facebook. I bet they are going to see that on their bottom line. So, if you dislike the outra…

Or we could support strong regulation and not have to passively accept being pushed into a false dichotomy!

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

#226

Post by virmundi »

Some might need to be split, but he’s looking at the wrong platforms. Gab is demonitized. The financial platforms won’t allow them to transact. The app stores won’t allow them to install. All this because a loon sent bombs. Twitter and FB have a history of allowing terrorists to communicate, but they are the darlings of the left so the are left alone. Break up the financial platforms if the government must break up someone.

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

#227

Post by nine_k »

kerng wrote: post #209
nine_k wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that people have an (almost) unalienable power, very strong, and pretty underused. It's the power of walking away. If you find an environment toxic, leave it, and ask your friends to leave it, too. Yes, you have to research alternatives first, and make compromises, at least temporarily. Lately this somehow worked for Facebook. I bet they are going to see that on their bottom line. So, if you dislike the outra…

Walking away sounds easy on paper, like for gaming addicts. The articles about Facebook from the past come to mind where management was fully aware of the addiction factor, and in fact did everything to encourage people to stay on Facebook longer, including showing them "relevant" content and encouraging likes. Maybe restrictions, similar to gambling could be put into effect? For instance, clearly stating the busines…

If such addiction is something that can be diagnosed via a reasonably rigorous procedure, then yes, we'll probably have to do something similar to other addictive things: age limits, clear warnings, maybe even independent ongoing testing of the effects. Compare to selling alcohol.

Most social sites already impose age limitations.

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

#228

Post by sfilargi »

No, we don't need the companies to split up.

What we need is a truly distributed Web. Web X.

Imagine a web where all the servers are just something like torrent nodes(or IPFS nodes). Ever user uses an Agent that just stores and retrieves encrypted chunk bytes to the servers.

No central point of control => No dominance, no monopoly, no censorship.

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

#229

Post by sumeno »

maxxxxx wrote: post #204
jogjayr wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo? Duplex? Photos? Even Chrome is newer than the things you listed.

Waymo got bought, I don't know Duplex, Photos is not exactly innovative, Chrome is just another browser, they existed before

Waymo wasn't bought

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

#230

Post by nine_k »

Xixi wrote: post #221
nine_k wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is exactly not having to impose regulation. The power to move away is already in the people's hands. You can do it at any moment, without a governmental mandate. The point is to use this power. But first people have to recognize their power, and learn to use it a bit.

When AT&T was a monopoly and you had to rent your phone from them at an outrageous price, you could also walk away. But having to either walk/drive around or send slow mail to communicate was not very efficient. Perfectly doable, mind you, but very inconvenient. Sometimes the cost of walking away is just too steep, so abusing a dominant position becomes very easy and tempting. I don't think Twitter or Facebook are an…

Walking away from AT&T was hard because of the expense of building a phone transmission network, and (I suppose) because of some patents they held.

Walking away from Twitter is much easier, because multiple global instant or near-instant messaging systems exist, including completely open and user-controlled systems, and even building a new such system is reasonably easy for a group of competent people.

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