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The narrative for the last few years, at least in the mainstream media, is that Google Facebook Twitter Microsoft et al. are too big for anyone else to replace
by sverige 10y ago
The narrative for the last few years, at least in the mainstream media, is that Google Facebook Twitter Microsoft et al. are too big for anyone else to replace them. It's the old "inevitability" argument - if your new thing gets too big, they'll just buy you up.
Let's hope people continue to try to create services that a big percentage of people use and then resist to sell to the big data companies.
- x5n1 10y agoI loved the web in the early mid-2000s. Web 2.0 so many startups, so many ideas, so many failures. It was great. Lots more hope than what is out there right now.
- therealmarv 10y agoWe are now in another part of the hype cycle for the web.
- zeemonkee3 10y agoIt reminds me of early 20th century footage of barnstorming aircraft inventors. Now it's just Boeing and Airbus and precious little in the way of real innovation.
- doctorshady 10y agoThis probably won't be a popular opinion, but it seems like Google/Facebook/etc are entrenched too deeply in this incarnation of the web to be displaced any time soon. They seem to understand where they are too - it goes beyond just buying out competitors. Look at Facebook's Internet Lite plan for India.
- sverige 10y ago> Look at Facebook's Internet Lite plan for India. Which was a spectacular failure...
- a3n 10y agoFor now.
- doctorshady 10y agoRight. My point was more that they're willing to go to some fairly extreme measures to try insuring their market dominance.
- sverige 10y agoAnd it sounds like we share the hope that they'll never fully succeed.
- doctorshady 10y agoDefinitely can't disagree :) . I've had my reservations about the direction of the internet before, but a Facebook walled garden internet just sounds plain scary. Or worthless.
- mxuribe 10y agoIn the short term, you are likely right. But do you remember the days when some folks thought society might not need anything more than CompuServe, prodigy, earthling.net, aol? Long term I am hopeful about decentralization.
- doctorshady 10y agoI'd definitely like to think so - and in practice, I've done more of running my own infrastructure recently. But what about those who're stuck under capped internet plans? What about the people whose interest in computing begins and ends with owning a smartphone?
- jbpetersen 10y agoWhat's your setup like?
- doctorshady 10y agoAt the moment, just an old desktop running HTTP/SSH/IRC functionality, and a 1U server I have modified for fitting full size (as in like, the huge, foot-long) PCI cards; mostly for the goofy projects I do in my spare time. It is a hardened machine though, and should be capable of running a few daemons if it comes down to it. EDIT: I should mention I'm on satellite internet (there's quite literally no options for broadband where I live. I will, however, use my phone line for SSH via dial-up occasionally), so it's probably not very practical to run SMTP. For that, I have a Fastmail account.
- spc476 10y agoAt one point IBM was deeply entrenched in the industry. At another point in time it was Microsoft. This too, shall pass.
- patrickaljord 10y agoAt the time, computing didn't have the market penetration it has today. In other words, even if IBM and Microsoft had 99.9% of the market (which they had not), it didn't matter because only a tiny part of the population had computers at home and even less so in their pockets. Today's internet penetration is way bigger, almost anyone at least in the West has either a phone, laptop, tablet or desktop with a way to access Google and Facebook. Won't just go away as easily.