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I think the extent of that leverage is not well understood. It's like AMI trying to blackmail Jeff Bezos, but having all of their sites hosted with AWS .... W

by longstaff2009 8y ago

I think the extent of that leverage is not well understood. It's like AMI trying to blackmail Jeff Bezos, but having all of their sites hosted with AWS .... What happens when it makes business sense for Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook to start charging nation states a license fee for offering their services into their country and all the government services rely on their cloud offerings?

greenleafjacob 8y ago
Presumably that nation state puts someone in jail.
- longstaff2009 8y ago
  On what grounds? They would just be changing their business model
  - avmich 8y ago
    On the grounds of national security?
    - longstaff2009 8y ago
      maybe, but when it comes to calling bluffs it would be much harder for the government to sustain continued denial of services than for Google et al to keep the case in court
      - arkades 8y ago
        The ultimate tool of the government isn’t a courtroom, it’s a kalishnakov.
      - salawat 8y ago
        You see, Google exists because there are governments willing to acknowledge that they have a right to exist. It's the Zeroth law of the Economy. There's economic activity when you aren't getting shot at. If Google starts making sufficient waves that enough diplomatic pressure can be put on their host country to start tightening the thumbscrews, Google will be faced with a situation where suddenly a lot of it's worth and value start to disappear. If they start having to hire lawyers left and right due to scrutiny by the government or other governments, it becomes a less attractive asset to the market, and opens room for intrepid disruptors to replace their services. Google has 'won' by being willing to play ball. Once hard ball starts being played, make no mistake. Google will get tipped. ...and if it doesn't, God save us all from the paths that leads to. I'm pretty sure they won't be pretty.
      - avmich 8y ago
        In practice, I'm sure we won't need anything remotely resembling disorder. Google is a monopoly on the search market, but not a holder of a unique resource. One can have pretty good services, be that from Bing/DuckDuckGo (watch how fast they'll upgrade their indexes) or Yandex and other international players. Other than search, Google is even less relevant.
        longstaff2009 8y ago
        Not being a holder of a unique resource is a good point. Google do have the mind share though, can you imagine trying to explain to Aunty Robyn that you have to type duckduckgo.com into the search bar now? and that she cant google it anymore?
        jdbernard 8y ago
        The government certainly can. For examine, work with the major national ISPs to change the DNS entrees for google.com to a page listing the alternatives. Or just a state-themed version of DDG or Bing
  - ardy42 8y ago
    > On what grounds? Because you thumb your nose at nation-states at your peril.
    - longstaff2009 8y ago
      I like this phrase a lot :)
nicoburns 8y ago
Presumably the government would pay the fee... and immediately begin building their own competing services...
- warent 8y ago
  Governments could have unlimited time and money and still never be able to compete with free market corporations.
  - delhanty 8y ago
    A counter-example: https://www.gov.uk/ https://www.gov.uk/ works pretty well. * In fact, it's less user-hostile than most commercial sites. Why is that? * Disclaimer - I'm British
    - mruts 8y ago
      I'm not British, but that site does seem pretty nice. I don't know anything about the history of it, but I highly doubt it was developed in house. I don't think it's the case that the government is simply unable to do something like this, I just think they don't provide the right incentives like competitive pay and bonuses. In the private sector, say in finance, if you're good and you work for the firm for awhile you could get promoted to managing director and make anywhere from a million to ten million in bonuses for the year. If you're a productive manager in government, you don't really get paid much more than anyone else. The main benefit that government provides its employees is good benefits (healthcare, pensions) and job stability. It's unlikely that you will ever get fired unless for some very gross misconduct. I think this incentive system attracts the wrong kind of people into government: those who just want a stable paycheck instead of those driven to produce value. If we just raised government salaries or if the government gave out significant performance bonuses, the government would work a lot better and be much more efficient.
      - soneil 8y ago
        It is in-house, GDS is part of the cabinet office, a govt department - https://gds.blog.gov.uk/about/ https://gds.blog.gov.uk/about/ I do get your underlying point, but gov.uk has been near-universally lauded as “doing it right” - I think it’s important to take it as an example of “this is actually possible”, rather than brushing it off.

greenleafjacob 8y ago

Presumably that nation state puts someone in jail.

longstaff2009 8y ago
On what grounds? They would just be changing their business model
- avmich 8y ago
  On the grounds of national security?
  - longstaff2009 8y ago
    maybe, but when it comes to calling bluffs it would be much harder for the government to sustain continued denial of services than for Google et al to keep the case in court
    - arkades 8y ago
      The ultimate tool of the government isn’t a courtroom, it’s a kalishnakov.
    - salawat 8y ago
      You see, Google exists because there are governments willing to acknowledge that they have a right to exist. It's the Zeroth law of the Economy. There's economic activity when you aren't getting shot at. If Google starts making sufficient waves that enough diplomatic pressure can be put on their host country to start tightening the thumbscrews, Google will be faced with a situation where suddenly a lot of it's worth and value start to disappear. If they start having to hire lawyers left and right due to scrutiny by the government or other governments, it becomes a less attractive asset to the market, and opens room for intrepid disruptors to replace their services. Google has 'won' by being willing to play ball. Once hard ball starts being played, make no mistake. Google will get tipped. ...and if it doesn't, God save us all from the paths that leads to. I'm pretty sure they won't be pretty.
    - avmich 8y ago
      In practice, I'm sure we won't need anything remotely resembling disorder. Google is a monopoly on the search market, but not a holder of a unique resource. One can have pretty good services, be that from Bing/DuckDuckGo (watch how fast they'll upgrade their indexes) or Yandex and other international players. Other than search, Google is even less relevant.
      - longstaff2009 8y ago
        Not being a holder of a unique resource is a good point. Google do have the mind share though, can you imagine trying to explain to Aunty Robyn that you have to type duckduckgo.com into the search bar now? and that she cant google it anymore?
        jdbernard 8y ago
        The government certainly can. For examine, work with the major national ISPs to change the DNS entrees for google.com to a page listing the alternatives. Or just a state-themed version of DDG or Bing
- ardy42 8y ago
  > On what grounds? Because you thumb your nose at nation-states at your peril.
  - longstaff2009 8y ago
    I like this phrase a lot :)

nicoburns 8y ago

Presumably the government would pay the fee... and immediately begin building their own competing services...

warent 8y ago
Governments could have unlimited time and money and still never be able to compete with free market corporations.
- delhanty 8y ago
  A counter-example: https://www.gov.uk/ https://www.gov.uk/ works pretty well. * In fact, it's less user-hostile than most commercial sites. Why is that? * Disclaimer - I'm British
  - mruts 8y ago
    I'm not British, but that site does seem pretty nice. I don't know anything about the history of it, but I highly doubt it was developed in house. I don't think it's the case that the government is simply unable to do something like this, I just think they don't provide the right incentives like competitive pay and bonuses. In the private sector, say in finance, if you're good and you work for the firm for awhile you could get promoted to managing director and make anywhere from a million to ten million in bonuses for the year. If you're a productive manager in government, you don't really get paid much more than anyone else. The main benefit that government provides its employees is good benefits (healthcare, pensions) and job stability. It's unlikely that you will ever get fired unless for some very gross misconduct. I think this incentive system attracts the wrong kind of people into government: those who just want a stable paycheck instead of those driven to produce value. If we just raised government salaries or if the government gave out significant performance bonuses, the government would work a lot better and be much more efficient.
    - soneil 8y ago
      It is in-house, GDS is part of the cabinet office, a govt department - https://gds.blog.gov.uk/about/ https://gds.blog.gov.uk/about/ I do get your underlying point, but gov.uk has been near-universally lauded as “doing it right” - I think it’s important to take it as an example of “this is actually possible”, rather than brushing it off.