Are investors usually this clueless about how things work?
Who Will Control the Software That Powers the Internet?
41–50 of 80 posts
Re: Who Will Control the Software That Powers the Internet?
#42It's unclear to me if the person who wrote "who controls the Internet" has ever interacted with core internet infrastructure at the router, BGP, major transit and transport service provider ISP level. I find it very hard to take seriously prognostication from persons who've never been responsible for even a small sized ASN. Persons I do take seriously when they prognosticate on the future of the Internet: The individ…
He’s talking about the software layer, not the protocol layer.
Re: Who Will Control the Software That Powers the Internet?
#43It's unclear to me if the person who wrote "who controls the Internet" has ever interacted with core internet infrastructure at the router, BGP, major transit and transport service provider ISP level. I find it very hard to take seriously prognostication from persons who've never been responsible for even a small sized ASN. Persons I do take seriously when they prognosticate on the future of the Internet: The individ…
There was a recent post from an A16Z insider that basically made it clear that they are nothing more than a media house with VC capabilities. This is probably why the person writing it doesn't make much sense to you.
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Re: Who Will Control the Software That Powers the Internet?
#44“There has been a lot of talk in the past few years about blockchains, which are heavily hyped but poorly understood. Blockchains are networks of physical computers that work together in concert to form a single virtual computer.”
I mean, how could anyone be confused when you yourself are actively fudging the meaning in the immediate next sentence? The rest of the paragraph is worse. Embarrassingly bad, but par for the course from a16z.
Re: Who Will Control the Software That Powers the Internet?
#45Much of the groundwork for the internet and open software happened in the 1970s and 1980s thanks to influxes of government funding, including at many universities and research organizations. I advocate for government funding for public good internet software, because the societal benefit can be so high, and the only alternative so far is monopoly-equivalent companies such as FAANG. In the United States, and in many o…
Yeah, plus those folks actually had problems to solve and things to invent. These days 99.99% of VC projects and the stuff coming out of most tech giants is just throwing obscene amounts of money at creating new problems that no one knew they had, hoping some of it will stick and fund the next round of waste.
Re: Who Will Control the Software That Powers the Internet?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I worked at one of the biggest ISP's in the world we got extremely despondent when https and other end-2-end encryptions became the standard because we were then unable to understand what traffic was on the wires. For ISPs and network providers now everything is just bits, and it's all commodity. The service layer is now implemented by clients.
that's a good outcome. I would be very scared if the electrical utility company started looking at what i'm using the electrons for, and start disallowing certain types of uses for their electrons.
> I would be very scared if the electrical utility company started looking at what i'm using the electrons for, and start disallowing certain types of uses for their electrons.
The energy companies already do disallow certain types of use for "their electrons" (check your contract, seriously - domestic users are forbidden from certain uses) and with the advent of accurate monitoring thanks to 'smart meters' are able to enforce that much more easily.
Re: Who Will Control the Software That Powers the Internet?
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. We need a clear separation between system programs and application programs, so that a user can install the latest version of Python without it ever colliding with the outdated version of Python that the OS uses internally. The user shouldn't even need to be aware of the existence of the other Python. 2. The default way to install third-party application software shouldn't depend on repositories or servers. It sho…
> so that a user can install the latest version of Python without it ever colliding with the outdated version of Python that the OS uses internally Consider checking out nixos. Although this is already possible to do in normal distros. > The OS should define a stable format for the OS to install, update and uninstall these files Like .deb and .rpm? > 3. We need a desktop environment that's visually appealing and has…
> > The OS should define a stable format for the OS to install, update and uninstall these files
> Like .deb and .rpm?
It's ironic that the common complaint about these two formats (especially .deb [0]!) is that they are too stable and rigid...
Re: Who Will Control the Software That Powers the Internet?
#48Much of the groundwork for the internet and open software happened in the 1970s and 1980s thanks to influxes of government funding, including at many universities and research organizations. I advocate for government funding for public good internet software, because the societal benefit can be so high, and the only alternative so far is monopoly-equivalent companies such as FAANG. In the United States, and in many o…
You mention FAANG but don't forget Bell Labs which was also supported by a giant monopooy at the time, so that supports your theory too.
Re: Who Will Control the Software That Powers the Internet?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I worked at one of the biggest ISP's in the world we got extremely despondent when https and other end-2-end encryptions became the standard because we were then unable to understand what traffic was on the wires. For ISPs and network providers now everything is just bits, and it's all commodity. The service layer is now implemented by clients.
that's a good outcome. I would be very scared if the electrical utility company started looking at what i'm using the electrons for, and start disallowing certain types of uses for their electrons.
Yes - I think it's generally agreed that this is the case, especially as we move to effectively infinite bandwidth for home/office use (literally no one uses more than 100mbs for more than 60s a day). Unfortunately in computing we have two more layers of utility; the ones that own the clients (Microsoft, Apple) and the ones that own the services (Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple). We really need to get this fixed.
Re: Who Will Control the Software That Powers the Internet?
#50Nice article, I just posted the link on my Mastodon [1] account, which seems appropriate.
I understand that HN people who work for Internet platform companies like Facebook and Google push back on using open protocols and open distributed systems - never blame people for doing things in their self interest.
For the rest of us, for social, tech, and political reasons, I hope that we can push back at least a little against abuse of platform companies - that is in our self interest.