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Hearing about stuff like this, it's easy to imagine a future in which the 'bootstrapped' internet startup is simply no longer possible due to the costs of compl

by jcadam 9y ago

Hearing about stuff like this, it's easy to imagine a future in which the 'bootstrapped' internet startup is simply no longer possible due to the costs of complying with various governments' regulations.

flyinghamster 9y ago
My cynical side thinks that this is the goal of such legislation - an "unintended consequence" that really is intentional.
- fokov 9y ago
  You can call it being cynical, but honestly it is just applying the past actions to a "new" medium. People have already created laws, regulations, and other utilities to regulate free speech in various forms (books, newspapers, magazines, film, VHS, DVD, etc). History shows us there are many people that either do not understand or believe in free speech.
josephagoss 9y ago
Give any technology time to sit long enough weeds in the form of lawyers and regulators will grow over it and snuff it out. Rarely is society left with an efficient technology after government is done with it. Unfortunately most of my peers call for more and more regulation of business and all technology. More regulation is always good in their eyes. I've explained how regulation should be viewed as a constant push and pull, as society needs to be willing to repeal a regulation if it's not logical or relevant. Unfortunately the word repeal and regulation in the same sentence is dirty and I get looks for even mentioning how large unnecessary barriers to entry via regulation isn't always a good thing. In some ways this is why I support crypto currencies. Not for the scams and pump and dumps of today, but rather the building of a decentralized internet that may survive the lawyers and usher in a new era of freedom and creativity. Of course we are still about 5 years from having a GitHub or a search engine on top of crypto currency at the current rate of development. Unfortunately the bubble craze attracted a lot of unsavoury characters that is currently doing this space a lot of harm. Thankfully the lawyers can't shut Bitcoin down so we're safe for now.
- thethimble 9y ago
  Wait there's many examples of regulation overtly benefitting society and protecting its citizens from the harm of greedy corporations. Environmental protections, safety protections, financial/solvency protections, health/drug protections, etc... Surely, it's not "regulation" that's the enemy. What's stopping bad actors from foregoing these protections in an unregulated/decentralized world? The perfect example of this is what's going on with frivolous ICOs and crypto exchange "breaches" where consumers are losing because their ordinary consumer protections are not being enforced.
  - proofofmoon 9y ago
    We need to balance consumer protection with chilling effects on innovation. If regulators had applied strict interpretations of securities law to cryptoassets and exchanges, only accredited investors would have been allowed to invest and only big banks could have afforded to comply with exchange regulations.
FLUX-YOU 9y ago
Those founders will find a way. Maybe by asking for investments sooner and then going live.
- mtarnovan 9y ago
  I'm not sure that would qualify as 'bootstrapped'.
falcolas 9y ago
If I'm being blunt, its our own fault. We encourage people to upload and share content they don't own under the guise of "information wants to be free". We encourage the transformation of employees into contractors and operate in locations where the business is explicitly against the law, because "disrupt all the things". We work behind the scenes with our competitors to suppress worker wages, fix prices, and avoid taxes, because profit is more important than anything else. We do ICOs with imaginary money or IPOs with only private shares to get around the SEC and little nuisances like public disclosure. WTF did we expect to have happen? The government is a slow elephant to SV's sleek mouse, but when we don't run fast enough we're going to be completely flattened. This isn't new behavior on the part of the government - it's not like we can claim ignorance.
- kodablah 9y ago
  You shouldn't blame deluge of new laws on the users. It's kinda like victim blaming as though they made the laws themselves. Instead of asking "what caused governments to make new regulations" instead ask "what caused governments to use regulations instead of alternatives (including doing nothing)". You point out problems, but that's not fair to say that they caused the specific solutions more than the solution presenters themselves.
  - falcolas 9y ago
    I'm not blaming the users, I'm blaming the entrepreneurs. Sorry if that wasn't clear. > what caused governments to use regulations instead of alternatives (including doing nothing) It's the same as it always has been - why are any rules made up? Because someone cheats. Why do rulebooks get bigger and bigger and not smaller and smaller? Because someone sees the rule "do not steal", and threatens the victim into "giving" him the stuff, cause "it's not stealing if he gives it to me, right?" Now you need rules about coercion. More directly, people flouting the spirit of the law is the cause of this legislation. People ignoring the verbal and written warnings put out there by governments to play nice. Ultimately, the government has two forces of authority. The law (regulation) and force (police, army, etc). The first is empowered by the second. If the warning signs leading up to regulation are ignored, what else can we expect the government to do?
AgentME 9y ago
What content detection systems would the law require to be used anyway? If I run a little unmonetized web forum or video sharing site, is the EU going to provide me with the software I'm supposed to be using for content detection?
jstarfish 9y ago
I don't think it's that so much as it is a way to get rid of "nuisances" like the Rapidshares and Megauploads and the PopcornTimes of the EU. They may not inherently be doing anything wrong, but they're a problem for somebody powerful, so let's make sure we can find a reason to shut them down. If it's anything like USC 2257 or obscenity law, it's a wildcard law to be played when there's no other dirt on somebody. The implementation is left intentionally vague. They won't provide you a national registry to check against, nor will they license you government software that fulfills these goals to legal specifications. It's a law they put on the books with no clear path to compliance. So you're left to your own devices to implement something that may or may not do the job ("we checked hashes against a blacklist!")-- which you can arbitrarily be found in violation of by the courts at some later point ("...but you didn't do enough to check for derived or modified works!"), since there is no precedent for the extent to which one is expected to comply. Nobody will be prosecuted for this until there's a high-profile site that needs a takedown.

by jcadam 9y ago

flyinghamster 9y ago

My cynical side thinks that this is the goal of such legislation - an "unintended consequence" that really is intentional.

fokov 9y ago
You can call it being cynical, but honestly it is just applying the past actions to a "new" medium. People have already created laws, regulations, and other utilities to regulate free speech in various forms (books, newspapers, magazines, film, VHS, DVD, etc). History shows us there are many people that either do not understand or believe in free speech.

josephagoss 9y ago

Give any technology time to sit long enough weeds in the form of lawyers and regulators will grow over it and snuff it out. Rarely is society left with an efficient technology after government is done with it. Unfortunately most of my peers call for more and more regulation of business and all technology. More regulation is always good in their eyes. I've explained how regulation should be viewed as a constant push and pull, as society needs to be willing to repeal a regulation if it's not logical or relevant. Unfortunately the word repeal and regulation in the same sentence is dirty and I get looks for even mentioning how large unnecessary barriers to entry via regulation isn't always a good thing. In some ways this is why I support crypto currencies. Not for the scams and pump and dumps of today, but rather the building of a decentralized internet that may survive the lawyers and usher in a new era of freedom and creativity. Of course we are still about 5 years from having a GitHub or a search engine on top of crypto currency at the current rate of development. Unfortunately the bubble craze attracted a lot of unsavoury characters that is currently doing this space a lot of harm. Thankfully the lawyers can't shut Bitcoin down so we're safe for now.

thethimble 9y ago
Wait there's many examples of regulation overtly benefitting society and protecting its citizens from the harm of greedy corporations. Environmental protections, safety protections, financial/solvency protections, health/drug protections, etc... Surely, it's not "regulation" that's the enemy. What's stopping bad actors from foregoing these protections in an unregulated/decentralized world? The perfect example of this is what's going on with frivolous ICOs and crypto exchange "breaches" where consumers are losing because their ordinary consumer protections are not being enforced.
- proofofmoon 9y ago
  We need to balance consumer protection with chilling effects on innovation. If regulators had applied strict interpretations of securities law to cryptoassets and exchanges, only accredited investors would have been allowed to invest and only big banks could have afforded to comply with exchange regulations.

FLUX-YOU 9y ago

Those founders will find a way. Maybe by asking for investments sooner and then going live.

mtarnovan 9y ago
I'm not sure that would qualify as 'bootstrapped'.

falcolas 9y ago

If I'm being blunt, its our own fault. We encourage people to upload and share content they don't own under the guise of "information wants to be free". We encourage the transformation of employees into contractors and operate in locations where the business is explicitly against the law, because "disrupt all the things". We work behind the scenes with our competitors to suppress worker wages, fix prices, and avoid taxes, because profit is more important than anything else. We do ICOs with imaginary money or IPOs with only private shares to get around the SEC and little nuisances like public disclosure. WTF did we expect to have happen? The government is a slow elephant to SV's sleek mouse, but when we don't run fast enough we're going to be completely flattened. This isn't new behavior on the part of the government - it's not like we can claim ignorance.

kodablah 9y ago
You shouldn't blame deluge of new laws on the users. It's kinda like victim blaming as though they made the laws themselves. Instead of asking "what caused governments to make new regulations" instead ask "what caused governments to use regulations instead of alternatives (including doing nothing)". You point out problems, but that's not fair to say that they caused the specific solutions more than the solution presenters themselves.
- falcolas 9y ago
  I'm not blaming the users, I'm blaming the entrepreneurs. Sorry if that wasn't clear. > what caused governments to use regulations instead of alternatives (including doing nothing) It's the same as it always has been - why are any rules made up? Because someone cheats. Why do rulebooks get bigger and bigger and not smaller and smaller? Because someone sees the rule "do not steal", and threatens the victim into "giving" him the stuff, cause "it's not stealing if he gives it to me, right?" Now you need rules about coercion. More directly, people flouting the spirit of the law is the cause of this legislation. People ignoring the verbal and written warnings put out there by governments to play nice. Ultimately, the government has two forces of authority. The law (regulation) and force (police, army, etc). The first is empowered by the second. If the warning signs leading up to regulation are ignored, what else can we expect the government to do?

AgentME 9y ago

What content detection systems would the law require to be used anyway? If I run a little unmonetized web forum or video sharing site, is the EU going to provide me with the software I'm supposed to be using for content detection?

jstarfish 9y ago

I don't think it's that so much as it is a way to get rid of "nuisances" like the Rapidshares and Megauploads and the PopcornTimes of the EU. They may not inherently be doing anything wrong, but they're a problem for somebody powerful, so let's make sure we can find a reason to shut them down. If it's anything like USC 2257 or obscenity law, it's a wildcard law to be played when there's no other dirt on somebody. The implementation is left intentionally vague. They won't provide you a national registry to check against, nor will they license you government software that fulfills these goals to legal specifications. It's a law they put on the books with no clear path to compliance. So you're left to your own devices to implement something that may or may not do the job ("we checked hashes against a blacklist!")-- which you can arbitrarily be found in violation of by the courts at some later point ("...but you didn't do enough to check for derived or modified works!"), since there is no precedent for the extent to which one is expected to comply. Nobody will be prosecuted for this until there's a high-profile site that needs a takedown.