3 ms·

Now imagine if you don't have 3m subs, no 150k followers on Twitter, no one is posting your stuff on Reddit and even on HN. Good luck getting any help from Goog

by bdz 7y ago

Now imagine if you don't have 3m subs, no 150k followers on Twitter, no one is posting your stuff on Reddit and even on HN. Good luck getting any help from Google

hi5eyes 7y ago
thats why clout is important
Frost1x 7y ago
Now imagine it isn't YouTube but some other more significant privatized service near monopoly status, say a local grocery chain or car rental company, and they enforce a "policy" (say banning you) that is now difficult to separate from a law other than you have no voice and little recourse for action, especially as an individual. Privatized monopolies are in general small totalitarian government regimes that reign over specific functions (markets) of life. Real competition is what breaks those regimes into a democracy where you can somewhat vote with your purchase decisions. We still have to watch out for cartels though where multiple near monopolies agree to stay out of each others territories or collude to set market practices.
- luckylion 7y ago
  Let's go a step further: imagine living in a new company town that Google bought/built. Three DMCA-claims and you're in violation of TOS, all your content (including what's in your apartment) is deleted and you're kicked out of town and driven to the town limits. I'm sure there will still be people here who are quite happy with that because "it's not the government doing it" and they reckon they're not next in line for the same treatment.
  - greenyoda 7y ago
    If Google builds a town in the U.S., they're still subject to state and federal laws, which have protections for tenants and requirements for due process. (If it's really a company town, then the company would be the municipal government.)
    - Spooky23 7y ago
      Not really. See West Virginia.
    - code_duck 7y ago
      Yeah, but it’s an analogy. Perhaps the point is that our digital tenancies should have similar protection.
  - progre 7y ago
    Pretty sure thats the plot of a Doctorow novel.
- vkou 7y ago
  Or where the SOP for every participant in the market is the same.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  You also have to watch out for the degenerate cases of competition that arise when the sold products are not commodities. The less a product is substitutable by another from its category, the more meaningless the competition is. On the commodity end, you have grocery stores; for most products, you have true competition because all grocery stores sell mostly the same stuff (and from the same brands). On the "meaningless competition" end you have streaming services like Netflix and HBO. Movies, TV shows, videogames are mostly non-substitutable goods (if you want to watch Star Wars, being told to go watch Princess Bride instead isn't going to cut it). Streaming services are so full of exclusively licensed content that they don't compete - you have to subscribe to those that have content that interest you. This is kind of like a cartel, but arises organically, bottom-up, instead of from explicit collusion.

by bdz 7y ago

Now imagine if you don't have 3m subs, no 150k followers on Twitter, no one is posting your stuff on Reddit and even on HN. Good luck getting any help from Google

hi5eyes 7y ago

thats why clout is important

Frost1x 7y ago

Now imagine it isn't YouTube but some other more significant privatized service near monopoly status, say a local grocery chain or car rental company, and they enforce a "policy" (say banning you) that is now difficult to separate from a law other than you have no voice and little recourse for action, especially as an individual. Privatized monopolies are in general small totalitarian government regimes that reign over specific functions (markets) of life. Real competition is what breaks those regimes into a democracy where you can somewhat vote with your purchase decisions. We still have to watch out for cartels though where multiple near monopolies agree to stay out of each others territories or collude to set market practices.

luckylion 7y ago
Let's go a step further: imagine living in a new company town that Google bought/built. Three DMCA-claims and you're in violation of TOS, all your content (including what's in your apartment) is deleted and you're kicked out of town and driven to the town limits. I'm sure there will still be people here who are quite happy with that because "it's not the government doing it" and they reckon they're not next in line for the same treatment.
- greenyoda 7y ago
  If Google builds a town in the U.S., they're still subject to state and federal laws, which have protections for tenants and requirements for due process. (If it's really a company town, then the company would be the municipal government.)
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    Not really. See West Virginia.
  - code_duck 7y ago
    Yeah, but it’s an analogy. Perhaps the point is that our digital tenancies should have similar protection.
- progre 7y ago
  Pretty sure thats the plot of a Doctorow novel.
vkou 7y ago
Or where the SOP for every participant in the market is the same.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
You also have to watch out for the degenerate cases of competition that arise when the sold products are not commodities. The less a product is substitutable by another from its category, the more meaningless the competition is. On the commodity end, you have grocery stores; for most products, you have true competition because all grocery stores sell mostly the same stuff (and from the same brands). On the "meaningless competition" end you have streaming services like Netflix and HBO. Movies, TV shows, videogames are mostly non-substitutable goods (if you want to watch Star Wars, being told to go watch Princess Bride instead isn't going to cut it). Streaming services are so full of exclusively licensed content that they don't compete - you have to subscribe to those that have content that interest you. This is kind of like a cartel, but arises organically, bottom-up, instead of from explicit collusion.