5 ms·

There was always a lot of high quality content on the web, created and shared not with the intent of making money. This still exists but is crowded out by peopl

by throw2016 9y ago

There was always a lot of high quality content on the web, created and shared not with the intent of making money. This still exists but is crowded out by people incentivized to make content to monetize it ie the old publishing model. This now makes up the bulk of 'content' and is heavily monetized and driven by monetization where the 'content creators' have a more intimate relationship with advertisers and platforms to essentially sell out their audience ie back to the old media model of 'influencers'. The content is also derivative and repetitive but easier to access and consume. Thanks to the monetization the presentation and production values are higher. There is definitely some decent content produced by this model but it becomes harder and harder to find. There is a certain desperation to capitalism that infects everything. Sell, sell, sell, make money, forget everything else unless it affects your ability to make money, and it becomes the primary driver.

Smoosh 9y ago
> There is a certain desperation to capitalism that infects everything I just quoted you on twitter as I think that expresses very well how I feel. Underlying capitalism is the thought that if you fail you'll starve. But (and bringing this back to the original topic) the businesses behind the web have gone even further. It's not sufficient to make money, you must make ALL the money you can ALL of the time. This leads to the behaviour as discussed in the article - no regard for how you are treating your customers/fellow human beings, just get rich, and by winning you justify your shitty actions. This is probably nothing new, robber barons have been around for a long time, but it now seems to be standard practice for all businesses, especially web-based ones who don't directly deal with people.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
This is what the bulk of Meditations on Moloch[0] is about - under competitive pressure, if you can forgo a value in order to get ahead, you outcompete those not willing to do so. Iterate over it, and you can see how competition gradually throws all values under the bus, until all that remains is the money-making core. (I like to sometimes phrase it as "the market optimizes for creating the most useless thing that you can still trick people into buying".) -- [0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
- no-s 9y ago
  meditations on moloch seems to include several false premises. eg, in the fish farming scenario, it neglects the obvious: libertarian pacts are created to recognize property rights, which would yield a libertarian response to defectors - they're stealing productive capacity of the lake, ergo they're initiating a conflict.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Property rights themselves are a coordination problem - i.e. why should one respect the property rights of others when it benefits one to ignore them? In real world, we solve this the usual way - by having a government enforce them.

Smoosh 9y ago

> There is a certain desperation to capitalism that infects everything I just quoted you on twitter as I think that expresses very well how I feel. Underlying capitalism is the thought that if you fail you'll starve. But (and bringing this back to the original topic) the businesses behind the web have gone even further. It's not sufficient to make money, you must make ALL the money you can ALL of the time. This leads to the behaviour as discussed in the article - no regard for how you are treating your customers/fellow human beings, just get rich, and by winning you justify your shitty actions. This is probably nothing new, robber barons have been around for a long time, but it now seems to be standard practice for all businesses, especially web-based ones who don't directly deal with people.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

This is what the bulk of Meditations on Moloch[0] is about - under competitive pressure, if you can forgo a value in order to get ahead, you outcompete those not willing to do so. Iterate over it, and you can see how competition gradually throws all values under the bus, until all that remains is the money-making core. (I like to sometimes phrase it as "the market optimizes for creating the most useless thing that you can still trick people into buying".) -- [0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

no-s 9y ago
meditations on moloch seems to include several false premises. eg, in the fish farming scenario, it neglects the obvious: libertarian pacts are created to recognize property rights, which would yield a libertarian response to defectors - they're stealing productive capacity of the lake, ergo they're initiating a conflict.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Property rights themselves are a coordination problem - i.e. why should one respect the property rights of others when it benefits one to ignore them? In real world, we solve this the usual way - by having a government enforce them.