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> People starting businesses with bad business models don't offend me on a moral level. It's their funeral, let them make bad decisions if they want. If you wa

> People starting businesses with bad business models don't offend me on a moral level. It's their funeral, let them make bad decisions if they want. If you want a good explanation of why you should be offended and why you should want Startup Drano, try: http://idlewords.com/talks/internet_with_a_human_face.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/internet_with_a_human_face.htm. Here's the key quote: "But investor storytime is a cancer on our industry. Because to make it work, to keep the edifice of promises from tumbling down, companies have to constantly find ways to make advertising more invasive and ubiquitous. Investor storytime only works if you can argue that advertising in the future is going to be effective and lucrative in ways it just isn't today. If the investors stop believing this, the money will dry up. And that's the motor destroying our online privacy. Investor storytime is why you'll see facial detection at store shelves and checkout counters. Investor storytime is why garbage cans in London are talking to your cell phone, to find out who you are." When all the free money is chasing advertising-driven business models, the advertising has to get ever more invasive in order to justify valuations. I'm all for letting business stand or fail on their merits if no one but the investors are harmed, but this is a very destructive externality that affects everyone.

draw_down 10y ago
Hmm. Indeed that is bad, but I have a feeling what we're really talking about here is capitalism.
- Urbanxassassin 10y ago
  Yes, that is a good portion of America's capitalism perspective.
- sedachv 10y ago
  Eben Moglen said the same thing during the Q&A at his HOPE 2012 talk: I don't think that the problem of collecting too much is now primarily a byproduct of careless regulation. The problem of collecting too much arises from the fact that the future of capitalism is in the data mining and control of its customers. When capitalist societies begin to depend more on consumption than they do on production for their overall economic health, and the GDP of the United States has been primarily consumption for more than 15 years now, then knowing how to control consumers becomes as important as knowing how to control productive machines was when the GDP was primarily based upon production rather than consumption. What is happening is that we are automating and instrumenting the portion of the economy which is most powerfully important, namely consumption. Collecting information about consumers is the same thing as knowing how the mill machines worked to the capitalists of the 19th century. So what we are confronting is not the accident of perverse incentives created as a byproduct of unintended consequences of regulation. We are facing the fact that doing the wrong thing is the basis of future economic growth. We are not trying to destroy future economic growth, we are trying to compromise among values. That's what regulation is. It's a messy process. Of course it has unintended consequences. Naturally it creates perverse incentives, because it's imperfect. But understanding the objective has to be clear: productive capitalism met ecological constraints. It dirtied the water too much, it dirtied the air too much, it created too many difficulties that had to be constrained as negative externalities produced by production. The attempt to regiment and govern consumption through data mining raises ecologic problems we must solve. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY43zF_eHu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY43zF_eHu4 at 54:20

draw_down 10y ago

Hmm. Indeed that is bad, but I have a feeling what we're really talking about here is capitalism.

Urbanxassassin 10y ago
Yes, that is a good portion of America's capitalism perspective.
sedachv 10y ago
Eben Moglen said the same thing during the Q&A at his HOPE 2012 talk: I don't think that the problem of collecting too much is now primarily a byproduct of careless regulation. The problem of collecting too much arises from the fact that the future of capitalism is in the data mining and control of its customers. When capitalist societies begin to depend more on consumption than they do on production for their overall economic health, and the GDP of the United States has been primarily consumption for more than 15 years now, then knowing how to control consumers becomes as important as knowing how to control productive machines was when the GDP was primarily based upon production rather than consumption. What is happening is that we are automating and instrumenting the portion of the economy which is most powerfully important, namely consumption. Collecting information about consumers is the same thing as knowing how the mill machines worked to the capitalists of the 19th century. So what we are confronting is not the accident of perverse incentives created as a byproduct of unintended consequences of regulation. We are facing the fact that doing the wrong thing is the basis of future economic growth. We are not trying to destroy future economic growth, we are trying to compromise among values. That's what regulation is. It's a messy process. Of course it has unintended consequences. Naturally it creates perverse incentives, because it's imperfect. But understanding the objective has to be clear: productive capitalism met ecological constraints. It dirtied the water too much, it dirtied the air too much, it created too many difficulties that had to be constrained as negative externalities produced by production. The attempt to regiment and govern consumption through data mining raises ecologic problems we must solve. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY43zF_eHu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY43zF_eHu4 at 54:20