Who's doing this to my internet? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#271

Post by josh2600 » Tue, Jul 28, 2015, 7:28 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #242

josh2600 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find comments like this to be sorta akin to putting your fingers in your ears and screaming "lalalalala I can't hear you!". Whenever people say "free" in the context of information exchange, my belief is that they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of information. Information is a proxy for power, and the power comes from asymmetry. If everyone has a level playing field from an information access perspective, y…

>everyone remembers the first half of that quote: "information wants to be free..." // You appear to have the quote wrong and the intent of the quote wrong too? Wikipedia has it as from Stewart Brand, supporting the freeing of information: >"On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants…

Thank you for the correction! It is appreciated.

I am firmly in the camp that wants additional information dissemination, but I am also in the business of understanding why this is hard. I do see knowledge as one of the few universal equalizers, but I recognize, simultaneously, why invested power structures want to protect their advantages.

I agree that current economic paradigms require rethinking, but, short of additional taxation and subsidization, I don't see how we're going to achieve any semblance of novelty in economics.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#272

Post by Frondo » Tue, Jul 28, 2015, 7:32 PM UTC

maxtheman wrote: post #254

Frondo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"change half the network" doesn't meet any definition of democratic access to power that I am familiar with. People don't need to do a turn on a garbage collection route to vote on how their municipal garbage service is run.

"change half the network" is almost the textbook definition of democracy.

Democratic access to power has in no other circumstances required knowledge of coding.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#273

Post by josh2600 » Tue, Jul 28, 2015, 7:34 PM UTC

eevilspock wrote: post #177

josh2600 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find comments like this to be sorta akin to putting your fingers in your ears and screaming "lalalalala I can't hear you!". Whenever people say "free" in the context of information exchange, my belief is that they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of information. Information is a proxy for power, and the power comes from asymmetry. If everyone has a level playing field from an information access perspective, y…

I made a mistake by ending my comment with: > The author nails it at the end: > "There have to be other business models that free up the internet for what it was meant for: free exchange of information.” I'm with you. People need to get paid. I'm only calling for coming up with better business models or go back to the straight up "charge for it" model that the free market system is built on. The bit about "free up th…

Advertising is the worst model, except for all the rest of them.

Charging for things, in and of itself, is hard and, on some level, facetious. If all knowledge were known, why would you pay anyone to do anything? It's not clear to me why anyone pays anyone except in the case of information arbitrage. Advertising is a form of explicit information arbitrage, where we convert dollars into attention. Other information arbitrage's include licensing, where we essentially leverage the properties of intellectual property and technical obfuscation to generate returns.

The ills of advertising are a consequence of information arbitrage. What most people are railing against is the act of arbitraging what they view as trivial information, and yet this is the essential point that makes a business.

We think advertising is evil because it monetizes our attention in a vaguely non-consensual manner, but there are tons of businesses which are valued with respect to attention that are not valued with respect to dollars (think porn as the canonical example). Advertising is simply the easiest way to convert attention into dollars. There are higher friction methods, but their returns are generally commensurately lower.

If I could just reach into your bank account and pull a penny out for every minute you use my app, or listen to my song, or read my book, that might be a viable business. Barring that access, advertising appears to be best.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#274

Post by Frondo » Tue, Jul 28, 2015, 7:35 PM UTC

maxtheman wrote: post #253

Frondo wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People may also not like bitcoin because they want a democratic say in the design and operation of their currency. Bitcoin has economic features built into it that its users simply have no democratic redress to change, even if they wanted to. Power should be to the people, not some guy who likes deflation and baked that in years ago.

The federal reserve system was designed to be resilient against the democratic whims of the people; any minuscule control you have over the management of the US Dollar is a bug, not a feature.

It is responsive to democratic actions even if it isn't directly under the peoples control. Bitcoin, your average citizen has no recourse, period.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#275

Post by josh2600 » Tue, Jul 28, 2015, 7:39 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #207

josh2600 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find comments like this to be sorta akin to putting your fingers in your ears and screaming "lalalalala I can't hear you!". Whenever people say "free" in the context of information exchange, my belief is that they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of information. Information is a proxy for power, and the power comes from asymmetry. If everyone has a level playing field from an information access perspective, y…

The Internet infrastructure has nothing to do with what we are talking about. You actually pay for the infrastructure monthly to your ISP. Also, your understanding of the point of a business is really flawed. Everyone can have perfect information and businesses can still function just fine. I continue to pay restaurants for food even though I know they are making a profit off me. I do business with businesses that pr…

>The Internet infrastructure has nothing to do with what we are talking about. You actually pay for the infrastructure monthly to your ISP.

Actually, your tax dollars for the last 40+ years subsidized the internet and you now pay your ISP because of their ability to leverage regulatory arbitrage against you. Their secret is their ability to get governments to give them money for delivering services that they then charge exorbitant fees for; it's a good game.

If you look at the cost structures of the networks in contrast to the tax dollars subsidizing them, you'll realize that the networks were basically paid for by the citizens and operated privately at a profit. Here's a good book on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/Broadbandits-Inside-Billion-Telecom-He...

>Also, your understanding of the point of a business is really flawed. Everyone can have perfect information and businesses can still function just fine. I continue to pay restaurants for food even though I know they are making a profit off me.

Sure, you definitely pay people for services where you are aware they are making a profit, but the reason those services make a profit is secrets: knowing where the best sources of meat come from, the best vegetables, the vendors who show up on time etc. All businesses have secrets.

And no, we cannot simultaneously have perfect information exchange and functioning markets. You might have microcosms of functionality, but the global economy would cease to function. Lots of deals are dependent upon one side believing the other side is not cheating them. With perfect information, all of those secrets would be revealed and the consequences would be unpredictable at best and dire at worst.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#276

Post by norea-armozel » Tue, Jul 28, 2015, 7:40 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #153

norea-armozel wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I don't think the new services are a problem. They fill a niche in the market. Streaming services are for folks who don't want to manage their own media (physical or digital). Those folks prefer ownership of access over ownership of media itself. In itself it's fine as something to supplement a media library. But I don't believe most people realize that once access to the media is lost due to economic reaso…

This is a minor hassle compared to the fairly significant cost savings. When I was a teen/early 20s I'd spend something like $50-100 per record store visit. I'd go at least quarterly, buy music at concerts, etc. I'd easily spend $500 or more annually in 1990s/early 2000's money. Discs were $12-15 for a very long time, singles were economically stupid, and dealing with crap like scratched discs or skipping in the car…

>This is a minor hassle compared to the fairly significant cost savings.

The costs will always be equivalent as you pay with the not-so-major-hassle of losing access to the streaming service for some reason. It's a fact of life that there's no such thing as a free lunch. If you lose access, that is a cost in terms of time. However you may perceive it doesn't discount its existence.

>When I was a teen/early 20s I'd spend something like $50-100 per record store visit.

Today the price of a digital album barely breaks 15 USD. And in terms of inflation adjusted dollars, you and I were paying closer to 20 dollars (today's dollars) per album (I'm assuming 1990s era prices). As such, in many ways today's 20 somethings are getting a windfall in terms of digital purchases (DRM-free).

> Now, I'm paying $120 annually, in 2015 dollars, and every single song of that 30m library is available on my phone, which seamlessly connects to my car and other devices. I can also listen via the under-rated google music web player.

Which are held contingent on the fact that music labels can re-negotiate terms of access to their catalogs. If tomorrow any one of them decide to cut off the streaming services, then where's the music you had in the playlist? Clearly, this isn't likely to occur but it's not impossible nor is it theoretical. Netflix often rotates film and TV series through their streaming library. Music streaming isn't exempt from this same problem once music labels begin to assert their dominant position.

>I don't know any young person without Google Music or Spotify. They're popular for a reason and not because we don't understand economics.

I think you're confused as to what I'm pointing out which is that people are valuing access over ownership. This isn't a lack of any understanding of economics, it's just preference of consumers. I think the sooner you understand that all preferences are equal in the market the sooner you'll come to grasp my points.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#277

Post by josh2600 » Tue, Jul 28, 2015, 7:40 PM UTC

davemel37 wrote: post #236

josh2600 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find comments like this to be sorta akin to putting your fingers in your ears and screaming "lalalalala I can't hear you!". Whenever people say "free" in the context of information exchange, my belief is that they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of information. Information is a proxy for power, and the power comes from asymmetry. If everyone has a level playing field from an information access perspective, y…

> If everyone has a level playing field from an information access perspective, you cease to have functioning markets of exchange. The essential point of business is information arbitrage... This is a brilliant insight! Still, we are in a sufficiently connected world that the balance is shifting from businesses having the higher value information about the cost to deliver a service and the consumer having immediate a…

Would you say that Uber is less or more information asymmetric than the taxi companies?

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#278

Post by Retra » Tue, Jul 28, 2015, 7:40 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #7

Another song I loved by an artist I loved was available for sale, but on a tiny third-party music distribution site I'd never heard of, and for $1.50. $1.50 is a lot to pay for a song And then OP wonders why everyone is making free services plastered with ads instead of charging.

I would not buy a $1.50 song on such a site. Here's why:

$1.50 is not worth the scale of mental investment required. I'm not going to give my credit card info to a site that I'm only going to use once. I'm not going to give my info to a site I don't trust. I will buy my music from the places I am already invested in.

And it is an investment: it takes time, attention, trust, and memory to use a website. The cost of that song is not $1.50 to me. (If it were, I would have no trouble paying it. I think that's a perfect price for a song.) The cost is an arbitrarily long commitment to managing the risk involved with using the site.

Which is only worthwhile when I know I will come back regularly. When I can say "I plan on buying a new song every other day, and that I'm ok with spending hundreds on music from this one site." Or when I can justify a larger purchase that is exclusive to the site.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#279

Post by SolarUpNote » Tue, Jul 28, 2015, 7:54 PM UTC

SolarUpNote wrote: post #120

If paywalls don't work, and ads don't work, some kind of metered-browsing would be a solution. It's so far away from happening, it's hardly worth discussing, but imagine this: * let's say soundcloud could charge $.0001 (or something) for every pageview (or play, or some other interaction that the website chooses) * this fee is mostly transparent to the user, they've signed up once, and have access to all metered site…

On second thought, after doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations, the per-pageview fee would have to be a lot more than that. Even if you charged $.01 per pageview, that still couldn't compete with ad revenue.

So nevermind.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#280

Post by canadaduane » Tue, Jul 28, 2015, 8:03 PM UTC

jolan wrote: post #229

Steuard wrote: post #31

I feel old. This article begins by pining for the good, old-fashioned 'net of 2012. I know that I'm not the most attentive person on this topic, but honestly I don't feel like the big picture has changed much in years. Services like Twitter started up, grew wildly, and then looked for some way to make money for pretty much that whole time. Social networks sprout up; some make it, some don't. Big companies do some coo…

Just reeks of being a whiny niche webfotainment consumer. > I've really loved listening to SoundCloud over the past couple years since mainstream radio sucks, for the same reasons that mainstream TV used to (needing to target the lowest common denominator so as to not upset advertisers.) Boohoo, now my favorite sites are going mainstream since I spend hours on their sites/consuming their bandwidth and they need to co…

I know you're trying to be helpful by pointing out what's wrong with the author's perspective, but I think you're missing the main point--that there is no business model today that aligns well the needs and "digital rights" of the individual. Eventually, all of the good intentions of internet startups are subsumed by their business models (usually an advertising model), which only incidentally aligns with some of the needs of human beings.

I don't read it as a violin story, nor as a complaint--more of an attempt to define the problem and serve as a banner calling like-minded people together.