10 ms·

That's a nonsensical comparison. Phones all have one purpose and mechanism: voice calling. Instagram is based around a public photo-blog. Snapchat is ephemer

by mises 7y ago

That's a nonsensical comparison. Phones all have one purpose and mechanism: voice calling. Instagram is based around a public photo-blog. Snapchat is ephemeral photo-mesaging. You would be requiring social media sites to replicate each other's functionality. If I want to send a message to a twitter user, can it be longer than 140 characters? What if I am john.doe one one platform but you have the same name on another? Who keeps it? No, telcos were interoperable by fiat because there can only be so many phone lines.

chillacy 7y ago
I’ll add that laws like that are usually well intentioned but make no sense 30 years later, where the law still exists and everyone is wasting time implementing something from the past. Like IE6 browser requirements in South Korea.
mindslight 7y ago
It's quite amazing how the purported "free market" viewpoint has an unwavering faith in companies for getting things right, except for when imagining having to comply with any sort of mandate. A good faith interpretation of interoperability is that any service simply has to publish an equivalent API that allows interacting with "its" users in the service's own data model/paradigm. The market of competitors will then happily sort out the details of how to smooth the gaps.
- mises 7y ago
  > "free market" Why the "scare quotes"? I know you weren't quoting me since I didn't use those words. I don't trust a free market to get everything perfectly right. I simply trust a government even less and believe they will screw it up even more.
  - mindslight 7y ago
    Are any quotes considered "scare" quotes these days? I used quotes because the philosophy is often referred to as such, but it generally gains legs only when it can be used to undermine market competition. I describe myself as libertarian, and if you want to make the argument that regulation will be transmuted by the incumbents to calcify their own positions, I'm right there with you. But it's wholly disingenuous to assert that services could only be obtusely constrained to the lowest common denominator, rather than considering a sensible system of interoperability that would align incentives properly. Putting it in libertarian terms - instituting a demarcation point such that users' electronic data and identities actually belong to the users. Personally I think the real answer is that we need to self actualize and move away from these surveillance companies, period. And in that context yes it is a worry that regulations could be applied to harass down Free software. But given that we're staring down a much worse censorship regime, from both de jure and de facto governments (eg payment processors), I think we're likely to end up needing to avoid packet censorship anyway. A few additional business-consumer regulations aren't going to appreciably worsen that burden.
    - mises 7y ago
      Having government step in to fix things runs contrary to libertarianism. Firstly, whether "your data" is yours I would dispute. At most, it's produced by interactions between you and a company's software or server, so you own no more than half. You exchange that for free services. You also brought up two entirely different points: making services interoperable and making data produced by users belong to users. I addressed the data one, so next is interoperability. I would say that indeed, we will end up with the lowest common denominator of services, because the services are all different. Also, have you thought about how giving all these companies more access to data would impact the whole problem? Regardless, my argument is more that I see no clause in the Constitution that justifies such an action, and certainly see no justification in morality. Lastly, why are you writing in such a manner? It's clear you're trying to sound smart, but it just comes across as pompous. Just make good points. There's enough jargon on this site without people deliberately adding more. Also, a "demarcation point" does not convey what I think you wanted to ("law"). Furthermore, you cannot "harrass down" anything; that's bad English. Based on a quoted search, it looks like a piece of jargon specific to League of Ledgends gamers. I wouldn't pick on such things but for the insufferable tone. You've got some nice phrases, they're just in the wrong sentences.
      - mindslight 7y ago
        Maybe I'm the output of machine learning, just mushing together popular online phrases. Or maybe I was just a tired human when I wrote that. "harass down" was merely a bad edit - it was "shut down", then I thought "harass" worked better. Sorry. Responding substantively, the difference between a "government" and a corporation to which everybody has involuntarily contracted is in name only. In fact, much of the government overreach in the US isn't based on pure mandate, but rather justified by needing to "opt in" in some way - eg license plates are justified with the fiction that you're choosing to drive on government-administered roads. We don't say that just because you have the choice to move out of state, individual states are libertarian-justified in making whatever laws they'd like. "Migrating" between online services today feels akin to the friction of moving between states - moving away from your social circle. And similar to how the states generally follow national leads, major online services have begin acting in concert like this current censorship push. As I acknowledged, the productive libertarian answer is to seek to change the conditions that give rise to unnecessary power structures in the first place. But when addressing the situation as it stands, giving corporate power a pass is ultimately just deprecating individual freedom. This sector's companies are in the process of mingling with governments regardless (government gives regulatory capture, companies give enforcement legibility), whether or not the interests of the Individual are represented.
JetSpiegel 7y ago
> Instagram is based around a public photo-blog. Snapchat is ephemeral photo-mesaging. > you would be requiring social media sites to replicate each other's functionality. This is ironic, considering Facebook's Instagram has already copied Snapchat's funcionality wholesale without government intervention!

by mises 7y ago

chillacy 7y ago

I’ll add that laws like that are usually well intentioned but make no sense 30 years later, where the law still exists and everyone is wasting time implementing something from the past. Like IE6 browser requirements in South Korea.

mindslight 7y ago

It's quite amazing how the purported "free market" viewpoint has an unwavering faith in companies for getting things right, except for when imagining having to comply with any sort of mandate. A good faith interpretation of interoperability is that any service simply has to publish an equivalent API that allows interacting with "its" users in the service's own data model/paradigm. The market of competitors will then happily sort out the details of how to smooth the gaps.

mises 7y ago
> "free market" Why the "scare quotes"? I know you weren't quoting me since I didn't use those words. I don't trust a free market to get everything perfectly right. I simply trust a government even less and believe they will screw it up even more.
- mindslight 7y ago
  Are any quotes considered "scare" quotes these days? I used quotes because the philosophy is often referred to as such, but it generally gains legs only when it can be used to undermine market competition. I describe myself as libertarian, and if you want to make the argument that regulation will be transmuted by the incumbents to calcify their own positions, I'm right there with you. But it's wholly disingenuous to assert that services could only be obtusely constrained to the lowest common denominator, rather than considering a sensible system of interoperability that would align incentives properly. Putting it in libertarian terms - instituting a demarcation point such that users' electronic data and identities actually belong to the users. Personally I think the real answer is that we need to self actualize and move away from these surveillance companies, period. And in that context yes it is a worry that regulations could be applied to harass down Free software. But given that we're staring down a much worse censorship regime, from both de jure and de facto governments (eg payment processors), I think we're likely to end up needing to avoid packet censorship anyway. A few additional business-consumer regulations aren't going to appreciably worsen that burden.
  - mises 7y ago
    Having government step in to fix things runs contrary to libertarianism. Firstly, whether "your data" is yours I would dispute. At most, it's produced by interactions between you and a company's software or server, so you own no more than half. You exchange that for free services. You also brought up two entirely different points: making services interoperable and making data produced by users belong to users. I addressed the data one, so next is interoperability. I would say that indeed, we will end up with the lowest common denominator of services, because the services are all different. Also, have you thought about how giving all these companies more access to data would impact the whole problem? Regardless, my argument is more that I see no clause in the Constitution that justifies such an action, and certainly see no justification in morality. Lastly, why are you writing in such a manner? It's clear you're trying to sound smart, but it just comes across as pompous. Just make good points. There's enough jargon on this site without people deliberately adding more. Also, a "demarcation point" does not convey what I think you wanted to ("law"). Furthermore, you cannot "harrass down" anything; that's bad English. Based on a quoted search, it looks like a piece of jargon specific to League of Ledgends gamers. I wouldn't pick on such things but for the insufferable tone. You've got some nice phrases, they're just in the wrong sentences.
    - mindslight 7y ago
      Maybe I'm the output of machine learning, just mushing together popular online phrases. Or maybe I was just a tired human when I wrote that. "harass down" was merely a bad edit - it was "shut down", then I thought "harass" worked better. Sorry. Responding substantively, the difference between a "government" and a corporation to which everybody has involuntarily contracted is in name only. In fact, much of the government overreach in the US isn't based on pure mandate, but rather justified by needing to "opt in" in some way - eg license plates are justified with the fiction that you're choosing to drive on government-administered roads. We don't say that just because you have the choice to move out of state, individual states are libertarian-justified in making whatever laws they'd like. "Migrating" between online services today feels akin to the friction of moving between states - moving away from your social circle. And similar to how the states generally follow national leads, major online services have begin acting in concert like this current censorship push. As I acknowledged, the productive libertarian answer is to seek to change the conditions that give rise to unnecessary power structures in the first place. But when addressing the situation as it stands, giving corporate power a pass is ultimately just deprecating individual freedom. This sector's companies are in the process of mingling with governments regardless (government gives regulatory capture, companies give enforcement legibility), whether or not the interests of the Individual are represented.

JetSpiegel 7y ago

> Instagram is based around a public photo-blog. Snapchat is ephemeral photo-mesaging. > you would be requiring social media sites to replicate each other's functionality. This is ironic, considering Facebook's Instagram has already copied Snapchat's funcionality wholesale without government intervention!