Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 2:19 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #177

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

In which case DRM doesn't do anything, but regulation and whistleblowers do?

> DRM could well be implemented as encryption and decentralized services.

How would that work? You don't have control over your own machine, but everyone else does?!

DRM is the idea that your property has a function that controls what you can do with your property based on instructions from a third party ... who would that "decentralized third party"(?) be? And what would even be the point of that? I am not sure I even understand what kind of construction you have in mind that would qualify as DRM and also be useful for the end user in any way.

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

#182

Post by x220 » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 6:51 PM UTC

minikites wrote: post #44

x220 wrote: post #10

>Capitalism, according to all these men, is about frictionless, seamless engorgement. I could not care less about the opinions of thirty-something techies about political ideologies. At a time when capitalism seems more attacked in the West than at any other time in modern history, I think it is deceitful to talk about capitalism from the point of view of the group of the most unethical business leaders in America. W…

>We wouldn't tolerate someone defining socialism from the point of view of dictators. Venezuela, Stalin, Mao, etc all get brought up constantly in discussions about socialism/communism.

>all get brought up constantly

and are quickly met with "that's not real socialism".

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

#183

Post by mattmaroon » Mon, Feb 11, 2019, 1:25 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #31

mattmaroon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also particularly hard to break up attack company because of the value of their digital real estate. You can break Google up into as many companies as you want, but whichever one owns google.com has been basically unaffected. It's unclear how you'd break them up in such a way as to meaningfully increase competition in a search market where consumers reflexively turn to Google.

I don't agree with this at all. If you break up youtube from google, I think people will treat those very separately - they serve very different purposes. Same with facebook and instagram.

YouTube is probably like 8% of Google's revenue, not to mention that even if it became a separate company it'd probably just serve Google's ads. And it's the only domain other than the main one that matters enough to separate.

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

#184

Post by mattmaroon » Mon, Feb 11, 2019, 1:31 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #37

mattmaroon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also particularly hard to break up attack company because of the value of their digital real estate. You can break Google up into as many companies as you want, but whichever one owns google.com has been basically unaffected. It's unclear how you'd break them up in such a way as to meaningfully increase competition in a search market where consumers reflexively turn to Google.

Carving up a company is never easy. I'd say, clone out the search engine entirely, and as to the question of who owns google.com, the answer may well be "none of the above"; it could just turn into a page that offers you a randomly-sorted list of the baby Googles. Business being what it is, even if you simply fork Google, both new halfs are immediately going to seek out some way to differentiate themselves, so I thin…

What you are proposing is silly. The government is going to destroy a trillion dollar brand with no compensation to shareholders. Steal what's likely the most valuable piece of real estate in the world and turn it into a link farm. And somehow split a search engine with thousands of employees, who knows how many physical assets, etc. into separate companies that somehow continue operating?

This just doesn't make sense. No American politician would even purpose that for (rightful) fear of their career.