6 ms·

Company towns were a bizarre (and, arguably, pathological) special case in American history.

lukifer 8y ago
I don’t disagree; but, it could be argued that social media giants are equivalently bizarre institutions, that also blur the line between private property and public Commons.
stcredzero 8y ago
Company towns were a bizarre (and, arguably, pathological) special case in American history. Social media in the late 20-teens were a bizarre (and, arguably, pathological) special case in world history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI
- fixermark 8y ago
  No doubt, but that doesn't imply the lessons gleaned from how law applied to company towns are immediately portable to social media.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Given the potential for the company to absolutely control discourse within a community, it looks very portable to me.
    - Pharmakon 8y ago
      No matter how much the definition of monopoly is twisted, I’m sorry, but FaceBook isn’t one. Having the biggest audience and being monopolistic are not the same thing. I’ve never used FaceBook yet here we are talking through a similar medium. I don’t use Twitter, but I can still publish a blog. It’s seriously problematic when people try to redefine words to suit the argument of the day, because the erosion of the language persists and communication breaks down. Nothing about FB is equivalent to living in a town owned by your employer, complete with public services, law enforcement, and grocery stores. YouTube is dominant, because poeple make a totally free choice to use it, not because competition can’t exist. Nothing about being dominant in a market or network effects directly implies a monopoly. It’s not as though we’re dealing with Standard Oil, and if you want heat or a running vehicle you do business with them, or get bent!
      - charliesharding 8y ago
        A 15 second google shows the top social media sites based off monthly active users. Tell me an equivalent, viable platform to rival Facebook/Instagram that doesn't share the same political values. https://www.statista.com/statistics/247597/global-traffic-to-leading-us-social-networking-sites/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/247597/global-traffic-to...
        Pharmakon 8y ago
        Having the biggest audience and being monopolistic are not the same thing. Heinz Ketchup is the utterly dominant brand of ketchup in America by an order of magnitude. They sell more ketchup than every other brand combined in the U.S. and it is not a monopoly. Every attempt to make some new upstart ketchup has failed, and generations are totally sold on just Heinz with a degree of brand loyalty FB would kill to get... and yet they are not a monopoly nor has it been seriously alleged that they are.
        charliesharding 8y ago
        Right, because it's extremely easy to find other brands that are effective in the same way. A social network's purpose and efficacy is directly related to the number of users in that network. Not at all analogous
        Pharmakon 8y ago
        Not about an analogy, it’s just illustrating the point that market share and monopoly are not synonyms. As to a social network being effective in direct proportion to the number of users, it would really depend on what you want to use it for. Eternal September theory certainly shoots down the general case of your claim though.
        charliesharding 8y ago
        Never claimed they were. "it would really depend on what you want to use it for" It was my understanding that social media platforms were for connecting with people and sharing content/ideas with them. If you're trying to rebut my claim, you're going to have to actually do it, not point to something else and claim that it does.
xster 8y ago
How is it much different from monopolistic digital 'company towns'?
- fixermark 8y ago
  For starters: you live in a company town, and your continued employment at the company is geographically and practically tied deeply to that relationship. Competing digital empires are always a click away.
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    Except when Google tried it, they failed. Not even size will save you.
  - Barrin92 8y ago
    You could move between company towns just like you can move between digital platforms. In fact moving from Facebook to another platform is probably more difficult than moving to a different company town, given the fact alone that there are maybe less than a handful of competitors, if at all. Facebook really is nothing else than a company town of the digital space, or to put it even more strongly, facebook is almost the equivalent of a digital nation state, with its own market, its own rule of conduct, its own laws and contracts and so on. To circumvent the speech issue by acting as if Facebook is your neighbours mom and pop business completely distorts the nature and influence it has over everyone's life, and the amount of hardship you encounter if you're forbidden from speaking on its platform.
  - xster 8y ago
    We're in the context of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama right? If I understood correctly, Marsh didn't live in Chickasaw. The ruling was about the the monopoly over the receivers, not over the sender. In other words, my friends/receivers aren't a click away to becoming migrated from a digital monopoly to another 'competing digital empire'.

I don’t disagree; but, it could be argued that social media giants are equivalently bizarre institutions, that also blur the line between private property and public Commons.

stcredzero 8y ago

Company towns were a bizarre (and, arguably, pathological) special case in American history. Social media in the late 20-teens were a bizarre (and, arguably, pathological) special case in world history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI

fixermark 8y ago
No doubt, but that doesn't imply the lessons gleaned from how law applied to company towns are immediately portable to social media.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Given the potential for the company to absolutely control discourse within a community, it looks very portable to me.
  - Pharmakon 8y ago
    No matter how much the definition of monopoly is twisted, I’m sorry, but FaceBook isn’t one. Having the biggest audience and being monopolistic are not the same thing. I’ve never used FaceBook yet here we are talking through a similar medium. I don’t use Twitter, but I can still publish a blog. It’s seriously problematic when people try to redefine words to suit the argument of the day, because the erosion of the language persists and communication breaks down. Nothing about FB is equivalent to living in a town owned by your employer, complete with public services, law enforcement, and grocery stores. YouTube is dominant, because poeple make a totally free choice to use it, not because competition can’t exist. Nothing about being dominant in a market or network effects directly implies a monopoly. It’s not as though we’re dealing with Standard Oil, and if you want heat or a running vehicle you do business with them, or get bent!
    - charliesharding 8y ago
      A 15 second google shows the top social media sites based off monthly active users. Tell me an equivalent, viable platform to rival Facebook/Instagram that doesn't share the same political values. https://www.statista.com/statistics/247597/global-traffic-to-leading-us-social-networking-sites/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/247597/global-traffic-to...
      - Pharmakon 8y ago
        Having the biggest audience and being monopolistic are not the same thing. Heinz Ketchup is the utterly dominant brand of ketchup in America by an order of magnitude. They sell more ketchup than every other brand combined in the U.S. and it is not a monopoly. Every attempt to make some new upstart ketchup has failed, and generations are totally sold on just Heinz with a degree of brand loyalty FB would kill to get... and yet they are not a monopoly nor has it been seriously alleged that they are.
        charliesharding 8y ago
        Right, because it's extremely easy to find other brands that are effective in the same way. A social network's purpose and efficacy is directly related to the number of users in that network. Not at all analogous
        Pharmakon 8y ago
        Not about an analogy, it’s just illustrating the point that market share and monopoly are not synonyms. As to a social network being effective in direct proportion to the number of users, it would really depend on what you want to use it for. Eternal September theory certainly shoots down the general case of your claim though.
        charliesharding 8y ago
        Never claimed they were. "it would really depend on what you want to use it for" It was my understanding that social media platforms were for connecting with people and sharing content/ideas with them. If you're trying to rebut my claim, you're going to have to actually do it, not point to something else and claim that it does.

xster 8y ago

How is it much different from monopolistic digital 'company towns'?

fixermark 8y ago
For starters: you live in a company town, and your continued employment at the company is geographically and practically tied deeply to that relationship. Competing digital empires are always a click away.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  Except when Google tried it, they failed. Not even size will save you.
- Barrin92 8y ago
  You could move between company towns just like you can move between digital platforms. In fact moving from Facebook to another platform is probably more difficult than moving to a different company town, given the fact alone that there are maybe less than a handful of competitors, if at all. Facebook really is nothing else than a company town of the digital space, or to put it even more strongly, facebook is almost the equivalent of a digital nation state, with its own market, its own rule of conduct, its own laws and contracts and so on. To circumvent the speech issue by acting as if Facebook is your neighbours mom and pop business completely distorts the nature and influence it has over everyone's life, and the amount of hardship you encounter if you're forbidden from speaking on its platform.
- xster 8y ago
  We're in the context of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama right? If I understood correctly, Marsh didn't live in Chickasaw. The ruling was about the the monopoly over the receivers, not over the sender. In other words, my friends/receivers aren't a click away to becoming migrated from a digital monopoly to another 'competing digital empire'.