The User Always Loses • Hacker News Board

Re: The User Always Loses

#51

Post by jethro_tell » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

benjaminjosephw wrote: post #30

nkingsy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disruption requires inefficiencies/skirtable regulations in the existing system. In this case the system is capitalism itself. As long as software development and user acquisition requires capital, software doesn’t seem all that different from other capital intensive activities. IMO this will change when 1. Regulations and/or cultural norms inhibit user-hostile behavior. Or 2. capitalism itself changes

Venture Captital is not the same as capitalism. In fact, you could argue that the hyper-growth pro-monopoly attitudes of VC firms is decidedly anti-capitalist in as much as they are anticompetitive behaviours. Arguing that the current system is the only one that will work, regardless of how broken it is, is a very dangerous position to advocate for and an anti-pattern that would eventually lead us away from a fair an…

You're right on the money here.

I'm old enough to remember when you could start a business by going down to the bank and borrowing money with a 5 year term. The problem is you can't play in a winner take all market with a slow steady growth model any longer. The multi national monopoly with a stake closest to your business model will just crush you for fun.

This results in new ideas being go big or go home. May as well not play unless you're going to over borrow and try to grow so fast that you corner the market over night. Once you get the market cornered though, you gotta pay back that loan.

It would be rad if there was enough pie for people to have a good idea and get some customers and pay all their people and go home without needing endless growth.

Re: The User Always Loses

#52

Post by fullshark » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

Nostalgia for the old internet is basically nostalgia for a wild period of market capture that will never come again. People took chances and accepted massive short term losses in an attempt to capture hypothetical market share. Now that we know better what the internet is going to look like you aren't going to see people take big chances and provide user value at massive discounts again (simple example: News papers providing articles in front of paywalls).

Re: The User Always Loses

#53

Post by newyorker2 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 3:54 PM UTC

If people openly believe that centralization of the web is bad yet we continue pumping unnecessary money into the tech industry - then surely this must mean we're in a bubble. How wrong am I?

Re: The User Always Loses

#54

Post by Ericson2314 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #32

benjaminjosephw wrote: post #16

The VC model for funding technology is the root cause of user hostile technology. The pressure of investments that expect high returns is a feature/bug that determines the course these companies are likely to take. It creates the need to occasionally tade end-user freedoms for opportunities to "capture value". Venture Capital also imports theories of scarcity and under-production that our entire open-source ecosystem…

>The VC model for funding technology is the root cause of user hostile technology. The pressure of investments that expect high returns [...] VCs are not the root cause. You're not looking hard enough for counterexamples . Examples of software companies that didn't take VC money that many consider to be "user hostile" are: - Intuit -- see 1-star reviews on Amazon of annual Quicken releases and forced upgrades of bugg…

What sort of "root cause" analysis goes for the human nature of a founders? Yikes, are we that overly-focused on the individual?

Let my say the obvious, all those non-VC companies are publicly held. So let me get to the heart of the matter, if you have investors, they will demand returns on their investment. And if you don't have investors, you will have to compete externally (e.g. users) and internally (e.g. salaries) with those that do.

Re: The User Always Loses

#55

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #40

EarthIsHome wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real root cause of "user hostility" is that companies are run by humans and humans are self-serving and want to make more money. Let's take this further and ask What is the driving factor for humans to want to accumulate more money? I think the human founders are responding to external pressures that incentivize the accumulation of wealth.

R.e. "external" pressures. This explanation does not seem very efficient. There are tangible benefits to wealth accumulation. Wealth can afford its owner many kinds of different pleasures that are less available to the less wealthy. It also protects from many harms. All organisms in existence are avaricious to some extent or another, because the ancestral environment favors this trait.

There are also tangible disbenefits - like having your home destroyed by climate change, or having your democracy hollowed out, having to live with the risk of bankruptcy if you get ill.

Never mind the loss of online privacy.

The problem is that raising these as the real issues they are puts you outside the dominant ideology.

If you don't do it anonymously you are in real danger of discrimination during job searches. And if you do it forcefully and polemically enough - to the point where you start getting an activist audience instead an audience of passive click-consumers you can monetise - you'll attract more direct forms of attention.

Humans are avaricious, but humans are not only avaricious. Our ability to cooperate and to look after each other is one of the key evolutionary developments that led to to our success as a species.

From this point view neoliberalism, nationalism, and other competitive/extractive ideologies are an unwelcome return to dumb competitive animality. Some individuals win big, but the species as a whole damages its long-term survival prospects - literally and eventually very tangibly.

Re: The User Always Loses

#56

Post by nfc » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

benjaminjosephw wrote: post #16

The VC model for funding technology is the root cause of user hostile technology. The pressure of investments that expect high returns is a feature/bug that determines the course these companies are likely to take. It creates the need to occasionally tade end-user freedoms for opportunities to "capture value". Venture Capital also imports theories of scarcity and under-production that our entire open-source ecosystem…

I also think there's a lot to be tried in the space of "how to build technology companies". I see many options available to technology companies that are not realistic for traditional companies. I think that we need to experiment with legal frameworks for technology companies the same way we experimented with licenses for software for this potential to be fulfilled.

Re: The User Always Loses

#57

Post by mawise » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:04 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #46

jasode wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The VC model for funding technology is the root cause of user hostile technology. The pressure of investments that expect high returns [...] VCs are not the root cause. You're not looking hard enough for counterexamples . Examples of software companies that didn't take VC money that many consider to be "user hostile" are: - Intuit -- see 1-star reviews on Amazon of annual Quicken releases and forced upgrades of bugg…

> The real root cause of "user hostility" is that companies are run by humans and humans are self-serving and want to make more money. At least for software, we know of one solution that works: free (as in speech) software. Still made by humans, but usually without the self-serving greed, and if any of that does turn up, you never lose access to the last-good version and source, in case you or someone else wants to f…

This type of thinking has been a huge motivator to my side project as I try to envision what a more user-centric internet could look like. The core being self-hosted internet infrastructure--my project being an open-source, easy-to-run, _private_ blog. https://simpleblogs.org

Re: The User Always Loses

#58

Post by benjaminjosephw » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #32

benjaminjosephw wrote: post #16

The VC model for funding technology is the root cause of user hostile technology. The pressure of investments that expect high returns is a feature/bug that determines the course these companies are likely to take. It creates the need to occasionally tade end-user freedoms for opportunities to "capture value". Venture Capital also imports theories of scarcity and under-production that our entire open-source ecosystem…

>The VC model for funding technology is the root cause of user hostile technology. The pressure of investments that expect high returns [...] VCs are not the root cause. You're not looking hard enough for counterexamples . Examples of software companies that didn't take VC money that many consider to be "user hostile" are: - Intuit -- see 1-star reviews on Amazon of annual Quicken releases and forced upgrades of bugg…

VCs are here both symbolic of a system that seeks outsized returns and the catalysts of that system. VC funding is the accepted model for startup success and it's very difficult to find advice on starting a serious startup that doesn't anticipate VC-style backing. As a result, it's become the norm and an obvious starting point. Capturing the culture of early-stage startups in this way has lead to a monoculture where even communities like Indie Hackers advocates for VC funding[0]. VCs aren't literally the problem but they represent and reinforce the broken status-quo.

I'm interested in the properties of the system we've created and participate in and so this is a generalized observation. There are always counterexamples to generalisations but that's not to say that there isn't something valuable about the generalisation itself. I'm not arguing that without VCs founders would be perfect altruists but there could be other funding models that create fewer conflicts of interest between producers and consumers of technology.

[0] - https://www.indiehackers.com/post/indie-doesn-t-mean-bootstr...

Re: The User Always Loses

#59

Post by jokethrowaway » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #46

jasode wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The VC model for funding technology is the root cause of user hostile technology. The pressure of investments that expect high returns [...] VCs are not the root cause. You're not looking hard enough for counterexamples . Examples of software companies that didn't take VC money that many consider to be "user hostile" are: - Intuit -- see 1-star reviews on Amazon of annual Quicken releases and forced upgrades of bugg…

> The real root cause of "user hostility" is that companies are run by humans and humans are self-serving and want to make more money. At least for software, we know of one solution that works: free (as in speech) software. Still made by humans, but usually without the self-serving greed, and if any of that does turn up, you never lose access to the last-good version and source, in case you or someone else wants to f…

That's not sustainable. Most OSS nowadays is produced by big companies looking at OSS as a way to retain or capture more engineering talent.

It somehow works for small individuals because having a nice github can be useful to get a job or bypass the ridiculous interviewing process of the day.

A few heroes barely live off donations from wealthy companies and patreons, others sell development courses on the side.

The real problem is that companies in our society grow too much and we end up with a few outliers companies and hordes of employees. Unfortunately, as soon as a company gets money or becomes successful enough to lobby the government for more regulations, they can effectively make it harder for competitor to pop up. The fact that starting a business is a logistic hassle because of corporate taxes is another barrier.

I'd like to see more micro companies and individuals providing value to society instead of giant corporations. OSS can be a part of that, but it doesn't have to be.

Re: The User Always Loses

#60

Post by m463 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:14 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #46

jasode wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The VC model for funding technology is the root cause of user hostile technology. The pressure of investments that expect high returns [...] VCs are not the root cause. You're not looking hard enough for counterexamples . Examples of software companies that didn't take VC money that many consider to be "user hostile" are: - Intuit -- see 1-star reviews on Amazon of annual Quicken releases and forced upgrades of bugg…

> The real root cause of "user hostility" is that companies are run by humans and humans are self-serving and want to make more money. At least for software, we know of one solution that works: free (as in speech) software. Still made by humans, but usually without the self-serving greed, and if any of that does turn up, you never lose access to the last-good version and source, in case you or someone else wants to f…

checks-and-balances.

free software puts pressure on the giants.

(lets see when the free software phones come out over the next year or two how they do)

Look, capitalism works. But unfettered capitalism could use free software.