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Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

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Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#171

Post by bad_user »

kauffj wrote: post #67

Rather than trust busting, why not start with relaxing the federal laws which forbid the development of third-party applications? The limits on third-party apps are legal, not technical. It is not technically challenging to build an application that collects Facebook credentials and then presents alternative views and features. It could, for example, finally be possible to see a time-ordered view of your friends' pos…

> It could, for example, finally be possible to see a time-ordered view of your friends' posts (Facebook doesn't allow this since it reduces engagement).

I view this the same way as I view ad-blocking.

Building on top of Facebook only strengthens their monopoly and does nothing to reward their competition.

And given that Facebook can break such "apps" on a whim, via simple and justifiable changes to their UI or APIs, you haven't gained anything, while reinforcing their monopoly.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#172

Post by kybernetikos »

barry-cotter wrote: post #168
kybernetikos wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this - in the recent discussion on Slate Star Codex about Thiel's views, the point was made that outsize success and profits are generally a sign of lack of competition. To me, after a reasonable period for them to capitalise on their innovation/higher quality execution, any company making huge profits in an area with few competitors should be subject to a range of measures designed to reduce barriers to…

Indeed, we wouldn’t want to incentivise people to produce wealth and improve people’s lives. That way inequality lies.

No actually. We do want to incentivise that behaviour, which is why I suggested a grace period for extracting the outsized profits.

What we dont want to incentivise is regulatory capture, entrenched power, rent seeking behaviour.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#173

Post by csomar »

danra wrote: post #125
taurath wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it were legal (which it should be IMO), I can't see anything other than a cat and mouse game happening where the primaries change their authentication patterns on a daily, hourly or minute to minute basis. Consider all the things that facebook does to mess with scrapers right now - every single letter in a div, multiples that are hidden, etc. Its a complete mess. "Forced open APIs" is an interesting idea in t…

> every single letter in a div That's... I... Well. :0

Easy to get around. Just use "innerText" and it'll generate whatever text is inside. They do have plenty of other tactics, though.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#174

Post by scotty79 »

nopriorarrests wrote: post #128
scotty79 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main reason no practical alternatives to Facebook exist is the network effect. You could just split Google in half into Goo and Gle and force them to publish protocols their services use so they can share the network. This could also allow smaller players to join the network. At the beginning you could bounce people going to google.com at random to goo.com or gle.com until they start prefering one or the other…

>Until there is one Google, there is one strategy that can be tried at one time. This harms progress. I mean, have you seen the full list of google chat apps? You call it "one strategy that can be tried at one time"?

It's easy to halfassedly try dozens of things and fail at all of them if your existence doesn't depend on it.

If what google monopolist does to try new things was best or even sufficcient then planned economies would thrive.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#175

Post by sabalaba »

Surprised that HN has this sort of myopia in tech history. Are things really different this time? Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, Bell, IBM, Microsoft, AOL Time Warner. Cries for antitrust action are often a bellwether for organic disruption. A lot of the discussion here is about how to "organically" break the trust via regulatory changes such as repealing CFAA, more scrutiny around acquisitions, etc.

It's not possible to understand the first order effects (let alone second and above) of regulation. Doing so without using the mighty/crude hammer of antitrust would presume that one knew how to organically disrupt these companies. "Oh! If only other people were to prevent Google from making all of these acquisitions we would have more competition in search!" "If only small companies could build 'third-party apps' legally!" Once you substitute out the ever-wise HN commenter with a member of our legislature does the absurdity of these statements become clear. Can we at least have the humility to say that we don't know how to disrupt these companies? There is already a massive profit incentive in the form of the net profits to be competed for. The answer to the question "How do you beat Google?" is for the market to answer.

Before trying to come up with a regulatory solution, it's worth stepping back and realizing that if you knew exactly how to beat Google, you'd hopefully try and do it.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#176

Post by fouc »

jolux wrote: post #147
danra wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every single letter in a div That's... I... Well. :0

Do they really do this? I would totally believe it but I don't see it...

Next time you are on facebook, just right click and inspect element or view source code.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#177

Post by stcredzero »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #156
stcredzero wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But also, and maybe more importantly, interoperation does not really necessarily require any sharing of data. DRM actually has a potential for societal good. We should make companies like Facebook subject to DRM around our data . DRM is subject to the same asymmetry as privacy. Privacy for individuals is a societal good, in contrast to governments and big public companies, which should be as transparent as possible.…

Well, except it doesn't, because it necessarily either doesn't work or it is centrally controlled. What does help is simply encryption and decentralized services, no need for DRM.

Well, except it doesn't, because it necessarily either doesn't work or it is centrally controlled.

Putting in another hoop for abusive corporations to jump through does have a function. There would be additional opportunities for whistleblowers to spot it happening, opening up the company to legal and regulatory action. Also, it wouldn't necessarily have to be centrally controlled. 3rd party companies could be hired to do the administration.

What does help is simply encryption and decentralized services, no need for DRM.

DRM could well be implemented as encryption and decentralized services.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#178

Post by eli_gottlieb »

B-Con wrote: post #151
kauffj wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're misunderstanding. I'm not proposing that Facebook be _forced_ to allow third-party access, which would carry the risks you've pointed out. I'm simply proposing the federal government not aid them in their market dominance. Facebook could still prevent third-party applications from functioning, but it would have to do so by methods inside of the HTTP specification rather than legal ones. For example, it…

What's the difference? If it's desirable to reserve the right to disallow third-party frontends, why push the burden onto them (and everyone else) enforcing it through technical measures?

Because with technical measures, the cost is allocated to the party who benefits from vendor lock-in, rather than to the public.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#179

Post by fouc »

Trust-Busting implies that we have to go out of our way to identify and bust monopolies every 10-20 years. That's the wrong fix here. Instead we should focus on finding alternative solutions that reduce the tendency to form these huge corporations or conglomerations. And encourage more companies/competition.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#180

Post by taurath »

csomar wrote: post #173
danra wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every single letter in a div That's... I... Well. :0

Easy to get around. Just use "innerText" and it'll generate whatever text is inside. They do have plenty of other tactics, though.

They also will write the divs out of order, put in "fake" letter divs that are hidden or on a different z axis, all sorts of fun stuff.
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