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The User Always Loses

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Re: The User Always Loses

#141

Post by pabs3 »

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…

Of course the situation is far better than with proprietary software, but there is plenty of free software that has user hostile privacy violations. For one example (Cura), the only reason the authors fixed the issue is that the GDPR forced them to do so. Most people don't have the skills one would need to discover nor fix these issues.

https://wiki.debian.org/PrivacyIssues https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/issues/2810

There is also plenty of free software for mobile phones and hosted user services.

https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/LeavingTheCloud

Re: The User Always Loses

#143

Post by pabs3 »

jtolmar wrote: post #66
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 think the worker co-op model has a lot of potential for tech startups. They're more stable than other ownership models, and the desires of the workers tend to be more aligned with consumers than the consumers are with investors (and obviously a worker co-op is far more aligned with the desires of the workers). The primary advantage of venture capital is access to capital for growth, which isn't a great fit for pure…

Igalia is an example of a successful co-op in the Free Software & Open Source services space:

https://www.igalia.com/

Re: The User Always Loses

#144

Post by afarrell »

rdiddly wrote: post #80
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…

Can we not just say it's greed? "Some people are greedy" and leave it at that? In a sufficiently small and self-governing community, that kind of asshole would be sanctioned, exiled or killed. In a large industrialized society that can't reach any consensus whatsoever on any issue except that economic growth is essential, and that makes that growth its sole unassailable objective, you will get user-hostile software,…

We can, but the people on this forum tend to like trying to solve problems. There's no solution to "some people are greedy" besides mass-murder or reframing the problem in ways that assume people will be greedy.

Re: The User Always Loses

#145

Post by afarrell »

cryptica wrote: post #42

> How did the Internet get so bad? The article misses the point. The problem has its root in monetary policy. The problem is supply-side economics. Money printing and giving control of the money supply to banks has made consumers redundant appendages of the financial system. Imagine that you're the CEO of a unicorn startup or a big corporation and you constantly deal with investors, banks and customers. Which of thes…

This problem is most apparent during a recession, when the central bank (rightly) strives to quickly increase the money supply by buying bonds (and apparently equities!).

If instead there could be a joint policy by The Fed and the Social Security Administration, then the flow of money (and thereby attention)_could be less lopsided.

Re: The User Always Loses

#146

Post by eximius »

Someone mentioned federation but the problem is that often there isn't a good group to federate. Google+ wasn't great, but I do miss circles. But the intersection of my circles and the circles of those in my circles were small.

I feel like the "correct" model is users hosting their data with apps operating on it in a decentralized (or multi-layer federation ) way. But the economics are just really, really hard without certain restrictions, like always on connections for a primary 'home' device.

Re: The User Always Loses

#147

Post by [deleted] »

bleepblorp wrote: post #88
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 problem here is excessive governmental tolerance of monopolies and the lack of an adequate regulatory/legal regime to protect end-users from harms caused by vendor-lock in. All of the companies you mention have near-monopolies in their respective sectors. Hundreds of years of economic history show that monopolies are extremely harmful to their customers. Autodesk is only able to get away with what it does be…

[deleted]

Re: The User Always Loses

#148

Post by tomcam »

rdiddly wrote: post #87
tomcam wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we not just say it's greed? IMHO we can't just say that. Because nothing is stopping us users from paying for email, online document storage, blogs, etc. It would appear to me that greed is one cause, and an unrealistic expectation that infrastructure should be free, or at least an all-you-can-eat buffet, is another cause.

It's a good point; we can't really escape the fact that it costs "effort" to do things that create "benefit". Although if I still stubbornly try to view this through the prism of greed, I note that it doesn't necessarily fall apart. Like maybe a user's wanting something for free is a form of greed, and the company that bases its business model around that, is really just turning that greed to its own advantage kind o…

I’ll allow it ;) TBH I was thinking along the same lines myself.

Re: The User Always Loses

#149

Post by bergstromm466 »

perl4ever wrote: post #124
bergstromm466 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These all seem like things wealth protects from This sounds to me like Silicon Valley solutionism. Getting rich only works for some time in a world with widespread crop failures and the many other effects of global heating. [1] When that happens I'd say it's only a matter of time before the pitchforks and guillotines come out... “I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes f…

>Getting rich only works for some time in a world with widespread crop failures How are crop failures a major problem if an area doesn't have a substantial amount of subsistence farmers and does have reasonably free trade? How could they threaten a developed economy without crop failures everywhere?

> How are crop failures a major problem if an area doesn't have a substantial amount of subsistence farmers and does have reasonably free trade?

Would you be able to rephrase your question to help meet my need for clarity? Maybe you could state your position without it being a question? At the moment it is not clear to me what you are asking.

> How could they threaten a developed economy without crop failures everywhere?

An example is migration. If large areas of land continue to be plundered and made infertile [1] by Global North corporations (or 'developed' countries' as you call them), by imposing harmful industrial agriculture practices then the inhabitants of those countries will have to migrate to other areas.

So we, as inhabitants of the Global North and members of the 1% wealthiest in the world (as everyone on Hackernews is), would do well to integrate Global South perspectives.

"We are currently facing the most severe migration crisis in history. But this is only one dimension of a broader civilizational crisis. Thus, anti-racist movements should not focus solely on issues of human mobility rights, but also build new paths of solidarity with societies in the geopolitical Global South. A new perspective on internationalism is necessary, where people of the North and the South co-operate to overcome the current colonial division of nature and labor, as well as what has been called the imperial mode of living. In this sense, it is important to question the dominant notions of what it means to live a good life, to think global when it comes to social welfare and to link up with movements such as eco-feminism or degrowth. Doing so could open up new possibilities to address fears of social relegation due to immigration, as they exist in the Global North."

— Miriam Lang

Source: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-10-17/integrating-so...

Re: The User Always Loses

#150

Post by perl4ever »

bergstromm466 wrote: post #149
perl4ever wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Getting rich only works for some time in a world with widespread crop failures How are crop failures a major problem if an area doesn't have a substantial amount of subsistence farmers and does have reasonably free trade? How could they threaten a developed economy without crop failures everywhere?

> How are crop failures a major problem if an area doesn't have a substantial amount of subsistence farmers and does have reasonably free trade? Would you be able to rephrase your question to help meet my need for clarity? Maybe you could state your position without it being a question? At the moment it is not clear to me what you are asking. > How could they threaten a developed economy without crop failures everywh…

This sounds like another way of saying widespread subsistence farming is a problem, which was essentially my point, not that it is strictly only a problem within national borders. If people have jobs, and make money, and buy food instead of growing it, then they don't face starvation because of crop failures and don't have to migrate. You seem to be opposed to "industrial agricultural practices", that I'd assumed were by definition the solution to the problem.
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