IANAL, but I'm curious: Suppose that deep-pocketed AI companies were paying Reddit, Stack Overflow, etc. to make it harder for other AI upstarts to access those data. I.e., to build a mote by denying competitors access to previously accessible data sets. Would that violate antitrust laws in various major markets?
Nitpick, also because the contrast is kind of funny: mote: a small particle, speck, atom, "mote of dust" moat: a deep ditch, often filled with water, as a first line of defence around a castle.
Hopefully this comment won't be demoated by the algorithm - it truly holds water on its own!
This, along with recent Reddit goings-on has made me realize a major risk with the current structure of online communication. Take either Reddit or Stack Exchange as examples. They build a platform, and users contribute their time, thought, energy, and knowledge to build a community on that platform. Those companies can then gatekeep and restrict access to all that the community built, when all they did is provide th…
The risk of centralized systems was discussed long ago. The Cathedral and the Bazarr was published in 1999. None of these ideas are new. Everyone who payed any attention knew it was coming.
This, along with recent Reddit goings-on has made me realize a major risk with the current structure of online communication. Take either Reddit or Stack Exchange as examples. They build a platform, and users contribute their time, thought, energy, and knowledge to build a community on that platform. Those companies can then gatekeep and restrict access to all that the community built, when all they did is provide th…
A decentralized system will never work because 99% of users do not care at all; the centralized systems are easier to sign up for and use. It's been demonstrated over and over and over again. Even if the underlying tech is decentralized, the community will settle around one or a few big instances (for example, Gmail and GitHub) which often end up having significant control over the trajectory of the entire ecosystem.…
Decentralized software is not the only alternative. A non-profit site would be much better than a publicly owned one. Further, it could be operated by a co-op and democratically run, with its own “laws”.
This, along with recent Reddit goings-on has made me realize a major risk with the current structure of online communication. Take either Reddit or Stack Exchange as examples. They build a platform, and users contribute their time, thought, energy, and knowledge to build a community on that platform. Those companies can then gatekeep and restrict access to all that the community built, when all they did is provide th…
Perhaps these sort of things shouldn't be for profit enterprise, given the inability of companies to not slaughter the goose that lay the golden eggs.
The problem is defining "these sorts of things". StackOverflow didn't do anything evil, they created a useful website and people flocked to it voluntarily.
Yesterday's data dumps/APIs fostered community, new market/channel discoveries & low risk acquisitions.
Today's data dumps/APIs foster easier access to train ML/AI models to put them on the path to irrelevance. They're pulling out all stops like there's no tmw, and there might not be, if they're willing to shake things up like this.
A decentralized system will never work because 99% of users do not care at all; the centralized systems are easier to sign up for and use. It's been demonstrated over and over and over again. Even if the underlying tech is decentralized, the community will settle around one or a few big instances (for example, Gmail and GitHub) which often end up having significant control over the trajectory of the entire ecosystem.…
>If you run your own email server and you get put onto Google's spam list - you're fucked. It's even worse than that- I ran my own email server, and for some reason gmail delayed any emails from their system to outside of their system. That meant that people would send me an email but I wouldn't get it for 20 minutes. These delays don't exist when using big email providers (it stopped being a problem when I switched…
I have run my own email server off a Linode for the last decade-plus, and I have never encountered this. Most of the people with whom I correspond (I run my own business from my server) are on Gmail, and I have always received their emails instantly. If you were getting emails only 20 minutes later, I wonder if there was some server misconfiguration on your end, e.g. sending messages into graylisting delays.
> As an example, consider the practice of selling exceptions to the GPL, as is done for Qt. There are people who do not consider that "open". See the whole debacle about what exactly constitutes "open source"
> There are people who do not consider that "open". Who? Even Richard Stallman is okay with what they do: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions
Richard Stallman isn't necessarily the sole authority on such things. Consider creative common vs. AGPL. Is CockroachDB "open"? etc.
In any case the software world has changed drastically since that article has been published.
A decentralized system will never work because 99% of users do not care at all; the centralized systems are easier to sign up for and use. It's been demonstrated over and over and over again. Even if the underlying tech is decentralized, the community will settle around one or a few big instances (for example, Gmail and GitHub) which often end up having significant control over the trajectory of the entire ecosystem.…
Decentralized software is not the only alternative. A non-profit site would be much better than a publicly owned one. Further, it could be operated by a co-op and democratically run, with its own “laws”.
> A non-profit site would be much better than a publicly owned one. Further, it could be operated by a co-op and democratically run, with its own “laws”.
If it's better why isn't that how these sites are run? Wikipedia for example is an anomaly.