5 ms·

My main takeaway here was that Gates thought that the cost of distribution on the internet would be so low that there would be no large business that could form

My main takeaway here was that Gates thought that the cost of distribution on the internet would be so low that there would be no large business that could form. However one of the interviewers pushes back by saying that because the cost of distribution would be so low, aggregators would naturally form a monopoly on this business. Incredibly prescient point in a world of Facebooks and Googles. Anyone know who she is, the Wired interviewer who makes this point?

Torwald 8y ago
Neither FB nor GOOG have become such monopolies in that type of business they were talking about. What Gates said hold true today. Think for example about a one person business like daringfireball.net, that was the type of business Gates was envisioning. Or Drudge report.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Neither FB nor GOOG have become such monopolies in that type of business they were talking about. What Gates said hold true today. They're very close to that. And the same is true to other content, e.g. Spotify, Amazon Kiddle, Netflix for films, YouTube for video, etc. People still go to other sources, but increasingly less so, and those sources all increasingly fringe (Daring Fireball? Compared to Facebook and the like?). Nothing like the wild west (and much freer and distributed) market it was 10 and 20 years ago. Between the 3-4 big social aggregators for example, there goes 80% of the internet advertising pie. Gates (as quoted below): "There will be no content club in my life time with $4 billion revenue...you are on drugs if you think that". Meanwhile there are like 5 "content clubs" with much higher revenue... [1] https://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-idea-theyre-using-the-internet/ https://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-id...
  - IncRnd 8y ago
    > Gates (as quoted below): "There will be no content club in my life time with $4 billion revenue...you are on drugs if you think that". > Meanwhile there are like 5 "content clubs" with much higher revenue... Good CEOs and Chairpersons don't blather about things that can adversely affect their company. Do you recall what happened after Musk tweeted that funding was secured?
    - slededit 8y ago
      Gates liked to make strong definitive statements and have his employees convince him he was wrong. Arguing back was rewarded with promotions provided you were right. It was a culture that selected heavily for type A personalities.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    > People still go to other sources, but increasingly less so, No, case in point, DDG is generating more traffic than ever. You can also see Facebook losing ground with teenagers and young adults. There's assault on all sides to decentralize the web as well. And Facebook is not the only social network, you can use Reddit to interact with your communities of interest and live completely off Facebook so your point does not really stand. Kindle is not a monopoly either. You have Kobo and several other e-readers with attached stores available on the market, and you can buy e-pubs on numerous sites that are not Amazon. Netflix also has to compete with Amazon Video and Apple services, they don't operate in a vacuum. And nothing prevents you from renting/buying physical media as well, even though it's not fashionable anymore. Youtube is the closest thing that looks like a monopoly for video sharing- granted. There are alternatives but they tend to be weak in comparison (at least at this stage).
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  Craigslist?
- wslh 8y ago
  > daringfireball.net I don't think many people in your family know the site.
- jtr_47 8y ago
  This ISPs have, or will become the true monopolies that will be the gatekeepers of all access to the internet. They are entrenched and are not expanding their services, instead, they are digging in and keeping their foothold within their regions, limiting/eliminating competition, both from a rules/laws (like preventing municipal ISPs from forming) and limiting their service footprint to maximize their "profits" within their regions. Next expanding, but always increasing the amount they charge to poor service and access to the "internet." If anything, it appears that ISP behavior is similar to the original Ma-Bell (USA) telephone Corp. It looks like somebody needs to break them up. But that's wishful thinking this day & age, just like having a nation wide (USA) fiber deploy to all states, cities and towns. Imagine, a Renaissance would develop. Peace
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    > Next expanding, but always increasing the amount they charge to poor service and access to the "internet." I think your comment is only valid for a particular place in the world. In other countries you have wild competition between land providers and also mobile internet providers that keep offers priced low and more and more competitive as they go. If you want to benefit from competition, you need to ensure the regulators fight against local monopolies, or force them to license their lines.
  - nickthemagicman 8y ago
    The internet in the middle of Monteverde rain forest in Costa Rica was faster than the internet at your average coffeeshop in L.A. That shocked me.
    - adventured 8y ago
      The US ranks in the top 10 to 15 globally on average consumer Internet speed. Costa Rica is below #100. About 1/5 to 1/6 the average speeds in the US, with US speeds increasing faster year-over-year despite the difference. Costa Rica is comparable to what you see in Iran or Nigeria, around four to five mbps. Your premise comes across as dramatically overstated (even if you did encounter a coffee shop in LA with poor Internet).
lotsofpulp 8y ago
The marginal cost of distribution is low, but the initial cost of getting all the content and setting up the infrastructure to deliver it is very high.
tyingq 8y ago
"Anyone know who she is, the Wired interviewer who makes this point?" It appears to be Denise Caruso: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Caruso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Caruso She has the byline on the cover of the June 1996 Wired story on Gates. I couldn't find the text of the story, but you can see the cover here: https://media.wired.com/photos/5bbbd018b1d78f2d74578369/master/w_2000,c_limit/04.06_g-w.jpg https://media.wired.com/photos/5bbbd018b1d78f2d74578369/mast... (shirtless Gates in a pool and called out as a "Gatesfold"...strange) Edit: This is the article: https://www.wired.com/1996/06/microsoft-6/ https://www.wired.com/1996/06/microsoft-6/

Torwald 8y ago

Neither FB nor GOOG have become such monopolies in that type of business they were talking about. What Gates said hold true today. Think for example about a one person business like daringfireball.net, that was the type of business Gates was envisioning. Or Drudge report.

coldtea 8y ago
>Neither FB nor GOOG have become such monopolies in that type of business they were talking about. What Gates said hold true today. They're very close to that. And the same is true to other content, e.g. Spotify, Amazon Kiddle, Netflix for films, YouTube for video, etc. People still go to other sources, but increasingly less so, and those sources all increasingly fringe (Daring Fireball? Compared to Facebook and the like?). Nothing like the wild west (and much freer and distributed) market it was 10 and 20 years ago. Between the 3-4 big social aggregators for example, there goes 80% of the internet advertising pie. Gates (as quoted below): "There will be no content club in my life time with $4 billion revenue...you are on drugs if you think that". Meanwhile there are like 5 "content clubs" with much higher revenue... [1] https://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-idea-theyre-using-the-internet/ https://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-id...
- IncRnd 8y ago
  > Gates (as quoted below): "There will be no content club in my life time with $4 billion revenue...you are on drugs if you think that". > Meanwhile there are like 5 "content clubs" with much higher revenue... Good CEOs and Chairpersons don't blather about things that can adversely affect their company. Do you recall what happened after Musk tweeted that funding was secured?
  - slededit 8y ago
    Gates liked to make strong definitive statements and have his employees convince him he was wrong. Arguing back was rewarded with promotions provided you were right. It was a culture that selected heavily for type A personalities.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  > People still go to other sources, but increasingly less so, No, case in point, DDG is generating more traffic than ever. You can also see Facebook losing ground with teenagers and young adults. There's assault on all sides to decentralize the web as well. And Facebook is not the only social network, you can use Reddit to interact with your communities of interest and live completely off Facebook so your point does not really stand. Kindle is not a monopoly either. You have Kobo and several other e-readers with attached stores available on the market, and you can buy e-pubs on numerous sites that are not Amazon. Netflix also has to compete with Amazon Video and Apple services, they don't operate in a vacuum. And nothing prevents you from renting/buying physical media as well, even though it's not fashionable anymore. Youtube is the closest thing that looks like a monopoly for video sharing- granted. There are alternatives but they tend to be weak in comparison (at least at this stage).
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
Craigslist?
wslh 8y ago
> daringfireball.net I don't think many people in your family know the site.
jtr_47 8y ago
This ISPs have, or will become the true monopolies that will be the gatekeepers of all access to the internet. They are entrenched and are not expanding their services, instead, they are digging in and keeping their foothold within their regions, limiting/eliminating competition, both from a rules/laws (like preventing municipal ISPs from forming) and limiting their service footprint to maximize their "profits" within their regions. Next expanding, but always increasing the amount they charge to poor service and access to the "internet." If anything, it appears that ISP behavior is similar to the original Ma-Bell (USA) telephone Corp. It looks like somebody needs to break them up. But that's wishful thinking this day & age, just like having a nation wide (USA) fiber deploy to all states, cities and towns. Imagine, a Renaissance would develop. Peace
- ekianjo 8y ago
  > Next expanding, but always increasing the amount they charge to poor service and access to the "internet." I think your comment is only valid for a particular place in the world. In other countries you have wild competition between land providers and also mobile internet providers that keep offers priced low and more and more competitive as they go. If you want to benefit from competition, you need to ensure the regulators fight against local monopolies, or force them to license their lines.
- nickthemagicman 8y ago
  The internet in the middle of Monteverde rain forest in Costa Rica was faster than the internet at your average coffeeshop in L.A. That shocked me.
  - adventured 8y ago
    The US ranks in the top 10 to 15 globally on average consumer Internet speed. Costa Rica is below #100. About 1/5 to 1/6 the average speeds in the US, with US speeds increasing faster year-over-year despite the difference. Costa Rica is comparable to what you see in Iran or Nigeria, around four to five mbps. Your premise comes across as dramatically overstated (even if you did encounter a coffee shop in LA with poor Internet).

lotsofpulp 8y ago

The marginal cost of distribution is low, but the initial cost of getting all the content and setting up the infrastructure to deliver it is very high.

tyingq 8y ago

"Anyone know who she is, the Wired interviewer who makes this point?" It appears to be Denise Caruso: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Caruso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Caruso She has the byline on the cover of the June 1996 Wired story on Gates. I couldn't find the text of the story, but you can see the cover here: https://media.wired.com/photos/5bbbd018b1d78f2d74578369/master/w_2000,c_limit/04.06_g-w.jpg https://media.wired.com/photos/5bbbd018b1d78f2d74578369/mast... (shirtless Gates in a pool and called out as a "Gatesfold"...strange) Edit: This is the article: https://www.wired.com/1996/06/microsoft-6/ https://www.wired.com/1996/06/microsoft-6/