5 ms·

Given the tendency for wealth and power to concentrate, is it possible to design a competitive, and efficient system where all the actors are sufficiently prosp

Given the tendency for wealth and power to concentrate, is it possible to design a competitive, and efficient system where all the actors are sufficiently prosperous without the formation of any monopolies/duopolies/oligopolies? Edit: a follow-up thought. If the answer is no or "it's too hard", then is it possible have something along the same lines, is it possible for the proposed system to self-correct away from monopolies/duopolies/oligopolies should they form?

mLuby 8y ago
Your second point is the critical one, and I'll add to it — there must be an incentive to decentralize, and it must outweigh the numerous incentives to re-centralize. We need to centralize around protocols/standards and decentralize ownership of data. If somehow each piece of data on a user were exponentially more expensive to keep, that might be possible. But that would be a very strange law…
- tareqak 8y ago
  Yeah, it probably more realistic (and possibly even ideal in its own way) to assume that obtaining the desired equilibrium will always be an adversarial process. Having proven ways to measure the dominance of each actor or having canaries / alerts is important, but not enough: there has to be ways to measures detect if anyone has subverted, gamed, or compromised the measures themselves.
- lovemenot 8y ago
  >> If somehow each piece of data on a user were exponentially more expensive to keep, that might be possible. But that would be a very strange law… Dave and I agree with your diagnosis, and we would like to propose a solution. Who is Dave? Well you know him, and I know that you know him and I know that when we both talk about Dave we must be talking about the same person. (mLuby I probably don't really know you, this is just a hypothetical). A casual observer could not approach our common understanding by adding more data. There's so many Daves after all. In fact they'd need to subtract all but the right data. So the solution is a protocol in which increased data adds noise faster than it adds signal. Such a protocol requires 1000s times more plausible yet incorrect noise for every signal. Digital chaff.
  - mLuby 8y ago
    I don't understand. If Eve (who we don't know) adds data like location, age, interests to her profile on our Dave, people will want to access her profile on Dave. This creates an incentive for Eve to aggregate as much data on as many people as possible. Are you saying that nobody can know which Dave we're talking about unless we identify him as Dave-with-cell-5551234567? I don't think that's true, since human social circles are pretty easy to figure out; see the humorous hypothetical collection of data about US Founding Fathers. http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/phone-spying-paul-revere-and-colonial-social-networking/ http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/phone-spying-paul...
    - lovemenot 8y ago
      Yes. That is what I am saying. And I agree that the protocol must be so designed that more data does not increase specificity, but rather increases noise.
- pymai 8y ago
  the SafeNetwork seems like the best decentralised project in that respect. the more resources you share with the network (cpu, hard drive space) the more money you earn. that should more than enough incentives for most poeple! there are a few other things too like only being charged to upload files once vs paying a subscription for the rest of your life, or only needing one password for all sites.
acover 8y ago
Tech has a tendency to become monopolistic. Well funded open source competitors seem like a solution as it would allow anyone to compete. Fund the development of software and not the distribution. It would realign incentives to the consumers.
- tareqak 8y ago
  That's part of what I'm trying to figure out as part of asking the question: what works well, but stays decentralized? There are probably transferable characteristics that we can learn about and be aware of.
  - panic 8y ago
    Looking at successful decentralized systems (the web, email, the internet itself) the common theme seems to be simple protocols that support multiple independent implementations.
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  I think this is a good idea. We use intellectual property protection to get money to developers, but then they charge money for things we could be duplicating for free. I think we could improve the lives of many people and lower the total cost of living a good life if for example everything productive was open source. I’ve written a story about this, with an all-capable machine as an allegory for an open source automated economy. That’s here: http://tlalexander.com/machine/ http://tlalexander.com/machine/ I really want to see more people taking this seriously. Open sourcing the productive world is a radical idea I fear most entrenched businesses owners wouldn’t take seriously, but I think the notion has staggering potential for improving the human condition for generations to come.
- Vinnl 8y ago
  But that's just moving the goalposts: who do you align incentives such that software is funded, not distribution?
  - acover 8y ago
paulddraper 8y ago
> is it possible See "Economies of Scale" [1] To the degree that efficiency is increased with larger scale, the market will become an oligopoly or monopoly. Most things are economies of scale: healthcare, social networks, manufacturing, network protocols. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale
- mmt 8y ago
  Volunteer (distributed) computing projects demonstrate that even scale can be decentralized.
  - wilsonnb3 8y ago
    I’m unaware of any such project that operates on even a hundredth of the scale of the centralized sites that people want to replace. Facebook, Twitter, google, etc.
    - mmt 8y ago
      Perhaps situations that are harder to count, such as botnets or bitcoin, would get closer. However, even a thousandth of their scale is enough to demonstrate that decentralized scale is possible at the level where there can be economies (or diseconomies). Google's scale was already huge even when they had merely "more than 10,000 servers" in the years prior to their IPO.
- zrm 8y ago
  Most network protocols like TCP/IP are royalty-free open standards. They have a monopoly in the sense that IPX et al are dead and gone, but that's not the same thing as having a single company in control of them.
  - paulddraper 8y ago
    In terms of economic capitalism yes, but more abstractly "market share" goes to a select few winners: ARP, IP, TCP, and HTTP. Because things are easier when devices use the same protocols as many other devices.
nicoburns 8y ago
Yes, but you have to regulate it.
jonahx 8y ago
Price's Law says no: > 50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people who participate in the work. https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/ https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/
- tareqak 8y ago
  I wonder if that observation depends on how fungible the output is. I also have a point of contention in that 50% of the work is not necessarily the same as 50% of the created value. Wikipedia also fixes the definition of Price's Law to be specifically around authors and their publications [0]. I can see the relationship that author is trying to make, but I'm uncomfortable to how the article conflates the generalization with original definition. The original definition is also related to Lotka's Law, which is also about publications [1]. I also just watched the Jordan B Peterson lecture linked in the article, and it sounded to me that he chose to make the same generalization [2]. He correctly calls it out as being restricted to creative work, but then goes on to make connections to goals scored in team sports like hockey and basketball. I think part of the problem in all of this is the attribution of effort with the overall outcome. Taking Peterson's example with hockey, you can try to have an all-star team of just goal-scorers be on your hockey team including your extra players, but good luck trying to qualify for a championship. "Alright fine", you say and you get two-or-three bespoke goalies on your team. You more likely to qualify now, but given the typical builds of goal-scorers and how often they get injured, and comparing that to players who play defense, now your problem becomes having a team that more injuries than average, and suffering performance-wise as a result. Certain kinds of success can be acquired through iterative attempts at amassing fractional results into one pot. Other kinds hinge binary do-or-die outcomes. Resilience and longevity comes from striking the correct balance between the two in any situation. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_J._de_Solla_Price#Scientific_contributions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_J._de_Solla_Price#Scient... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%27s_law [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=UmUdcWk6Vfw https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=UmUdcWk6Vfw
- hunter2_ 8y ago
  Hm. I worked in a team of 4 for quite some time, and it did always feel quite fair, now that you mention it.

mLuby 8y ago

Your second point is the critical one, and I'll add to it — there must be an incentive to decentralize, and it must outweigh the numerous incentives to re-centralize. We need to centralize around protocols/standards and decentralize ownership of data. If somehow each piece of data on a user were exponentially more expensive to keep, that might be possible. But that would be a very strange law…

tareqak 8y ago
Yeah, it probably more realistic (and possibly even ideal in its own way) to assume that obtaining the desired equilibrium will always be an adversarial process. Having proven ways to measure the dominance of each actor or having canaries / alerts is important, but not enough: there has to be ways to measures detect if anyone has subverted, gamed, or compromised the measures themselves.
lovemenot 8y ago
>> If somehow each piece of data on a user were exponentially more expensive to keep, that might be possible. But that would be a very strange law… Dave and I agree with your diagnosis, and we would like to propose a solution. Who is Dave? Well you know him, and I know that you know him and I know that when we both talk about Dave we must be talking about the same person. (mLuby I probably don't really know you, this is just a hypothetical). A casual observer could not approach our common understanding by adding more data. There's so many Daves after all. In fact they'd need to subtract all but the right data. So the solution is a protocol in which increased data adds noise faster than it adds signal. Such a protocol requires 1000s times more plausible yet incorrect noise for every signal. Digital chaff.
- mLuby 8y ago
  I don't understand. If Eve (who we don't know) adds data like location, age, interests to her profile on our Dave, people will want to access her profile on Dave. This creates an incentive for Eve to aggregate as much data on as many people as possible. Are you saying that nobody can know which Dave we're talking about unless we identify him as Dave-with-cell-5551234567? I don't think that's true, since human social circles are pretty easy to figure out; see the humorous hypothetical collection of data about US Founding Fathers. http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/phone-spying-paul-revere-and-colonial-social-networking/ http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/phone-spying-paul...
  - lovemenot 8y ago
    Yes. That is what I am saying. And I agree that the protocol must be so designed that more data does not increase specificity, but rather increases noise.
pymai 8y ago
the SafeNetwork seems like the best decentralised project in that respect. the more resources you share with the network (cpu, hard drive space) the more money you earn. that should more than enough incentives for most poeple! there are a few other things too like only being charged to upload files once vs paying a subscription for the rest of your life, or only needing one password for all sites.

acover 8y ago

Tech has a tendency to become monopolistic. Well funded open source competitors seem like a solution as it would allow anyone to compete. Fund the development of software and not the distribution. It would realign incentives to the consumers.

tareqak 8y ago
That's part of what I'm trying to figure out as part of asking the question: what works well, but stays decentralized? There are probably transferable characteristics that we can learn about and be aware of.
- panic 8y ago
  Looking at successful decentralized systems (the web, email, the internet itself) the common theme seems to be simple protocols that support multiple independent implementations.
TaylorAlexander 8y ago
I think this is a good idea. We use intellectual property protection to get money to developers, but then they charge money for things we could be duplicating for free. I think we could improve the lives of many people and lower the total cost of living a good life if for example everything productive was open source. I’ve written a story about this, with an all-capable machine as an allegory for an open source automated economy. That’s here: http://tlalexander.com/machine/ http://tlalexander.com/machine/ I really want to see more people taking this seriously. Open sourcing the productive world is a radical idea I fear most entrenched businesses owners wouldn’t take seriously, but I think the notion has staggering potential for improving the human condition for generations to come.
Vinnl 8y ago
But that's just moving the goalposts: who do you align incentives such that software is funded, not distribution?
- acover 8y ago

paulddraper 8y ago

> is it possible See "Economies of Scale" [1] To the degree that efficiency is increased with larger scale, the market will become an oligopoly or monopoly. Most things are economies of scale: healthcare, social networks, manufacturing, network protocols. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale

mmt 8y ago
Volunteer (distributed) computing projects demonstrate that even scale can be decentralized.
- wilsonnb3 8y ago
  I’m unaware of any such project that operates on even a hundredth of the scale of the centralized sites that people want to replace. Facebook, Twitter, google, etc.
  - mmt 8y ago
    Perhaps situations that are harder to count, such as botnets or bitcoin, would get closer. However, even a thousandth of their scale is enough to demonstrate that decentralized scale is possible at the level where there can be economies (or diseconomies). Google's scale was already huge even when they had merely "more than 10,000 servers" in the years prior to their IPO.
zrm 8y ago
Most network protocols like TCP/IP are royalty-free open standards. They have a monopoly in the sense that IPX et al are dead and gone, but that's not the same thing as having a single company in control of them.
- paulddraper 8y ago
  In terms of economic capitalism yes, but more abstractly "market share" goes to a select few winners: ARP, IP, TCP, and HTTP. Because things are easier when devices use the same protocols as many other devices.

nicoburns 8y ago

Yes, but you have to regulate it.

jonahx 8y ago

Price's Law says no: > 50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people who participate in the work. https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/ https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/

tareqak 8y ago
I wonder if that observation depends on how fungible the output is. I also have a point of contention in that 50% of the work is not necessarily the same as 50% of the created value. Wikipedia also fixes the definition of Price's Law to be specifically around authors and their publications [0]. I can see the relationship that author is trying to make, but I'm uncomfortable to how the article conflates the generalization with original definition. The original definition is also related to Lotka's Law, which is also about publications [1]. I also just watched the Jordan B Peterson lecture linked in the article, and it sounded to me that he chose to make the same generalization [2]. He correctly calls it out as being restricted to creative work, but then goes on to make connections to goals scored in team sports like hockey and basketball. I think part of the problem in all of this is the attribution of effort with the overall outcome. Taking Peterson's example with hockey, you can try to have an all-star team of just goal-scorers be on your hockey team including your extra players, but good luck trying to qualify for a championship. "Alright fine", you say and you get two-or-three bespoke goalies on your team. You more likely to qualify now, but given the typical builds of goal-scorers and how often they get injured, and comparing that to players who play defense, now your problem becomes having a team that more injuries than average, and suffering performance-wise as a result. Certain kinds of success can be acquired through iterative attempts at amassing fractional results into one pot. Other kinds hinge binary do-or-die outcomes. Resilience and longevity comes from striking the correct balance between the two in any situation. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_J._de_Solla_Price#Scientific_contributions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_J._de_Solla_Price#Scient... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%27s_law [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=UmUdcWk6Vfw https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=UmUdcWk6Vfw
hunter2_ 8y ago
Hm. I worked in a team of 4 for quite some time, and it did always feel quite fair, now that you mention it.