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"However, if I want to spider LinkedIn to MVP my way to a new application they’ll lock me out." Can you explain how this is different than how it has always be

"However, if I want to spider LinkedIn to MVP my way to a new application they’ll lock me out." Can you explain how this is different than how it has always been in the non-tech world? For example: Home depot has deals with various partners to display their inventory and sell their products. But if i want to go into the stores and track the inventory and scan prices myself, they'll kick me out of the store. You can even make this purely physical if you like, too. If i start a store that doesn't even compete with costco (different target markets), but start recording their prices/etc, they'll also kick me out. The usual response is "well, linkedin collected a bunch of data from users that they don't own and is now using it to make a business, and won't let me reuse it". So? That's also a thing that has happened since time immemorial, it's not like databases of this nature are new. They just got easier. Before you couldn't even make a product at all! What you are saying applies, IMHO, everywhere. It's basically a complaint that existing businesses won't let you co-opt them to get ahead, and may not be willing to partner with you. That's not special to any of the tech companies, or tech, or, well, anything.

philipov 9y ago
Yes, and tech giants used to be seen as 'saviors' from that, is the point. Now they have been revealed to be just like every other business.
- mistermann 9y ago
  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (but with an extra serving of self-righteousness).
fragmede 9y ago
Attitudes like this is why the promise of the Internet since the early days, limited to academic purposes only, has been lost. Because you're right - secret backroom deals and corruption are so common as to be assumed in the physical world to the point of non-competitiveness. Say I want to start a home improvement supply store. Well there's already Home Depot, Lowes, and OSH, so unless I have a secret and exclusive source for free lumber, I'd be crazy to even try, given all the deals that Home Depot has that guarantees it'll never die. So? Is moving non-digital collusion between big businesses to the Internet really the best we can achieve? Strive for better. Stagnation is bad, tech or non-tech. Everyone's noticed how Google searching's gotten less useful, or that Facebook (for the "olds" that still use it) is more annoying than useful these days. The Internet should be enabling better businesses by promoting competition, not stifling it. Naive? Intentionally so. (Every freemium startup has an enterprise "contact us" plan, but I choose to believe that's because enterprise customers want someone to talk to over the phone.) Hopeful? In spades, not bought from Home Depot.
- RestlessMind 9y ago
  > Is moving non-digital collusion between big businesses to the Internet really the best we can achieve? Unfortunately, yes! Thats because the Internet is just a tool and those who use it (i.e. us) haven't changed fundamentally since the advent of that tool. So why would you expect a tool to achieve a different outcomes? If you want different outcomes, let's try changing human beings; more specifically, let's devise ways to mitigate greed, envy and jealousy.
rdlecler1 9y ago
This is a terrible argument. You assume that a difference in degree can’t at some point lead to a difference in kind? Yes, this has always been done and that is part of the problem. Big tech companies say, hey there’s nothing new here—but there is. It has now got to a point where you end up with these oligarchies. Small companies simply CANT compete. Before a company could say: we only have so much shelf space or we only have so much material or it will cost $X/unit and is not cheap. That is not the problem because this is just information. There is zero marginal cost. And a whereas before they may have been able to work their way up by getting their product on the shelf of a small mom-and-pop store or get their raw materials from a different supplier, now there is only one distributor, only one supplier and if you don’t have favored nation status then you can’t compete. It’s for these reasons we put anti-trust rules in place because we recognized that it was suboptimal.

philipov 9y ago

Yes, and tech giants used to be seen as 'saviors' from that, is the point. Now they have been revealed to be just like every other business.

mistermann 9y ago
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (but with an extra serving of self-righteousness).

fragmede 9y ago

Attitudes like this is why the promise of the Internet since the early days, limited to academic purposes only, has been lost. Because you're right - secret backroom deals and corruption are so common as to be assumed in the physical world to the point of non-competitiveness. Say I want to start a home improvement supply store. Well there's already Home Depot, Lowes, and OSH, so unless I have a secret and exclusive source for free lumber, I'd be crazy to even try, given all the deals that Home Depot has that guarantees it'll never die. So? Is moving non-digital collusion between big businesses to the Internet really the best we can achieve? Strive for better. Stagnation is bad, tech or non-tech. Everyone's noticed how Google searching's gotten less useful, or that Facebook (for the "olds" that still use it) is more annoying than useful these days. The Internet should be enabling better businesses by promoting competition, not stifling it. Naive? Intentionally so. (Every freemium startup has an enterprise "contact us" plan, but I choose to believe that's because enterprise customers want someone to talk to over the phone.) Hopeful? In spades, not bought from Home Depot.

RestlessMind 9y ago
> Is moving non-digital collusion between big businesses to the Internet really the best we can achieve? Unfortunately, yes! Thats because the Internet is just a tool and those who use it (i.e. us) haven't changed fundamentally since the advent of that tool. So why would you expect a tool to achieve a different outcomes? If you want different outcomes, let's try changing human beings; more specifically, let's devise ways to mitigate greed, envy and jealousy.

rdlecler1 9y ago

This is a terrible argument. You assume that a difference in degree can’t at some point lead to a difference in kind? Yes, this has always been done and that is part of the problem. Big tech companies say, hey there’s nothing new here—but there is. It has now got to a point where you end up with these oligarchies. Small companies simply CANT compete. Before a company could say: we only have so much shelf space or we only have so much material or it will cost $X/unit and is not cheap. That is not the problem because this is just information. There is zero marginal cost. And a whereas before they may have been able to work their way up by getting their product on the shelf of a small mom-and-pop store or get their raw materials from a different supplier, now there is only one distributor, only one supplier and if you don’t have favored nation status then you can’t compete. It’s for these reasons we put anti-trust rules in place because we recognized that it was suboptimal.