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Its amazing how technology has failed at democratizing commerce , and everything really. In the early 2000s it was all about decentralizing, democratizing , emp

Its amazing how technology has failed at democratizing commerce , and everything really. In the early 2000s it was all about decentralizing, democratizing , empowering the small units. Nowadays, from tech stacks to marketing channels it 's as if there is a conspiracy to keep centralizing. Consolidation happens in every economic wave, but this feels premature.

root_axis 7y ago
It's not a conspiracy, it's simply that centralization is highly efficient and thus extremely popular. It's the reason why engineers that want to run the business out of bare metal colos get laughed out of the room in favor of an AWS stack. Decentralization is more work.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- notyourday 7y ago
  That's not the case. Centralization has certain pluses and those pluses tend to be gigantic compared to the minuses. AWS/GC/Azure trounce colos because AWS/GC/Azure come with tooling that simply does not exist in the colos. Atlantic.net blew minds of colo market when it provided API'able PDUs in early 2000s. Not the "SSH via this place into the APC with your username and a password see the status and trigger a power cycle" but "Send this payload to the following end point". PXE boot without manual tweaks is still basically non-existent in the colo space. I could continue with these examples but it should be enough. That's the reason why AWS/GC/Azure win, not because they are centralized. The minuses for AWS/GC/Azure is that no matter how big you are, unless you are Netflix or Snapchat you are still a very small customer which means that AWS/GC/Azure organization cares less about your happiness than Comcast does about the happiness of a random cable TV customer spending $180 a month on a triple play.
  - justinmk 7y ago
    > for AWS/GC/Azure is that no matter how big you are, unless you are Netflix or Snapchat you are still a very small customer which means that AWS/GC/Azure organization cares less about your happiness That truism is often repeated, despite the fact that it contradicts Netflix's own strategy[1]: > We would prefer to be an insignificant customer in a giant cloud. [1] https://sink.io/jmk/selfish-cooperation https://sink.io/jmk/selfish-cooperation
    - notyourday 7y ago
      Netflix may want to be a small fish in a big pond but its spend makes it a very large fish in a very small pond. This means that its problems are addressed first regardless of what kind of general rules the "cloud" has. One can see it everywhere -- the larger and the bigger the customer the more important it is.
  - root_axis 7y ago
    > AWS/GC/Azure trounce colos because AWS/GC/Azure come with tooling that simply does not exist in the colos. Yes, out of the box tooling is part of the "centralized" platform. In a decentralized world you stack some adhoc open-source tools and web dashboards atop your hand-rolled infrastructure. This is more work than a centralized solution that provides the metal and everything else you could possibly need (and everything you will never need) as a single centralized package. > PXE boot without manual tweaks is still basically non-existent in the colo space. I could continue with these examples but it should be enough. Those examples support my position. > That's the reason why AWS/GC/Azure win, not because they are centralized. They could not do this without being centralized, that's precisely the point.
    - notyourday 7y ago
      Nope. It does not have to do with centralization. It has to do with what the companies decided to do. Servint, Erols, DedicatedNow, DigitalNation, etc started before Amazon. So did EV1 or Choopa. They simply played a game of hardware rather than software tooling. As the hardware became more and more commoditized the software became more and more important. C/Panel and Plesk did not cut it. That's why Amazon/Google/Azure won.
Swizec 7y ago
There is. It’s called convenience. Why do you think the mall destroyed the downtown? It’s not because people wanted a decentralized store owners. It’s because consumers want centralization. Same thing happening in ecommerce. People want everything in one place. But the trend is also already shifting. People are tired of the big stores so much like malls have started to die, so too ecomm is increasingly about personal relationships.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  > It’s not because people wanted a decentralized store owners. I'm going to use this
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- shadowoflight 7y ago
  Amazon also has its hooks in consumers even deeper with Prime. Sure, another store might be willing to sell me an item for a couple bucks cheaper, but then when I factor in the extra shipping costs, Amazon comes out ahead - and they defray that cost for the consumer with value-added services like Prime Video and Twitch Prime, so that I don't really feel like I'm paying for the shipping, but rather for a bundle of services that happens to include the free shipping that keeps me tied to Amazon over other e-commerce sites. It's also interesting because this means that it's not only less convenient, but also more expensive to use other platforms - and in a Capitalist society, anti-giant-corporation ethics can't really stand against the need to not live on the street and the desire to own nice(ish) things.
braythwayt 7y ago
Same thing keeps happening to software. When a platform first launches, its sponsor works overtime recruiting indie developers to launch their own apps on the platform. They know that users will only come to the platform if it has content/apps that they want. Then at some point, the platform gains "critical mass." People stop buying the platform as a way to get a specific app, and start buying the platform for the platform, confident that it will provide whatever they need. Soon thereafter, the platform sponsor begins either buying up apps on its platform or making its own competition for apps on its platform. the independents are squeezed out because the platform no longer needs them to be successful. Then another platform launches, and its sponsor screams "developers, developers, developers..." And the cycle begins anew.
neilv 7y ago
Maybe there are better references, but, in January 2000, I wrote up a bunch of notes on the experience of building a PC from parts, as the various resellers and shoppers were still in the early stages of figuring things out: https://www.neilvandyke.org/cheap-pc-2000/ https://www.neilvandyke.org/cheap-pc-2000/
- taylortrusty 7y ago
  That was a blast from the past and a fun read.
- giobox 7y ago
  Wow, I remember the having the exact same deliberation and selecting the Abit BP6 at the time for much the same reasons. The ability of that motherboard to run dual Intel Celeron CPUs was unique at the time as it was a feature Intel had disabled on these chips and required some magic from Abit to enable the dual CPU functionality. This was arguably really the board that made dual processor configs affordable for enthusiasts on a budget for the first time, I loved mine. > http://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/3q99/bp6/bp6-1.html http://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/3q99/bp6/bp6-1.html
- Wildgoose 7y ago
  I bought the Abit BP6 motherboard and installed twin 533 Mhz Celerons as well! I still have the machine, it dual-booted between Linux and OS/2. Fantastic performance for the money.
wwweston 7y ago
It's easy to see the potential technology has to fulfill your values. It's harder to see the potential it has to fulfill other people's values (which may be very different from yours). Overall, what technology does most readily is magnify what people or societies are inclined to. So, in a capitalist/corporate economy where scale is incentivized and rewarded, technology will tend to magnify that. It can also magnify the chances early adopters have to make a new entry into the market for a certain window, but it won't alter the overall dynamic (this is a descriptive commentary, not necessarily normative). And boy, I remember when I thought the main obstacle to well-balanced political discussion was a lack of easy access to thoughtful, reliable information.
p1necone 7y ago
Unfettered capitalism tends towards collusion and consolidation, not competition.
walshemj 7y ago
I thought that the internet was about disintermediation not about adding 1001 me to comparison sites with identical products with identical copy from the same wholesalers.
kart23 7y ago
On the contrary, I've seen a lot of great smaller stores be able to set up their own web stores much easier thanks to tools like shopify or stripe. There is still a decent amount of work going towards allowing the smaller guys to have a presence online.
dredmorbius 7y ago
We got the logic wrong. Efficiency increases drive centralisation, not decentralisation.
rexpop 7y ago
> it's as if there is a conspiracy to keep centralizing. Rent-seeking is a basic force of Capitalism.

root_axis 7y ago

It's not a conspiracy, it's simply that centralization is highly efficient and thus extremely popular. It's the reason why engineers that want to run the business out of bare metal colos get laughed out of the room in favor of an AWS stack. Decentralization is more work.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
notyourday 7y ago
That's not the case. Centralization has certain pluses and those pluses tend to be gigantic compared to the minuses. AWS/GC/Azure trounce colos because AWS/GC/Azure come with tooling that simply does not exist in the colos. Atlantic.net blew minds of colo market when it provided API'able PDUs in early 2000s. Not the "SSH via this place into the APC with your username and a password see the status and trigger a power cycle" but "Send this payload to the following end point". PXE boot without manual tweaks is still basically non-existent in the colo space. I could continue with these examples but it should be enough. That's the reason why AWS/GC/Azure win, not because they are centralized. The minuses for AWS/GC/Azure is that no matter how big you are, unless you are Netflix or Snapchat you are still a very small customer which means that AWS/GC/Azure organization cares less about your happiness than Comcast does about the happiness of a random cable TV customer spending $180 a month on a triple play.
- justinmk 7y ago
  > for AWS/GC/Azure is that no matter how big you are, unless you are Netflix or Snapchat you are still a very small customer which means that AWS/GC/Azure organization cares less about your happiness That truism is often repeated, despite the fact that it contradicts Netflix's own strategy[1]: > We would prefer to be an insignificant customer in a giant cloud. [1] https://sink.io/jmk/selfish-cooperation https://sink.io/jmk/selfish-cooperation
  - notyourday 7y ago
    Netflix may want to be a small fish in a big pond but its spend makes it a very large fish in a very small pond. This means that its problems are addressed first regardless of what kind of general rules the "cloud" has. One can see it everywhere -- the larger and the bigger the customer the more important it is.
- root_axis 7y ago
  > AWS/GC/Azure trounce colos because AWS/GC/Azure come with tooling that simply does not exist in the colos. Yes, out of the box tooling is part of the "centralized" platform. In a decentralized world you stack some adhoc open-source tools and web dashboards atop your hand-rolled infrastructure. This is more work than a centralized solution that provides the metal and everything else you could possibly need (and everything you will never need) as a single centralized package. > PXE boot without manual tweaks is still basically non-existent in the colo space. I could continue with these examples but it should be enough. Those examples support my position. > That's the reason why AWS/GC/Azure win, not because they are centralized. They could not do this without being centralized, that's precisely the point.
  - notyourday 7y ago
    Nope. It does not have to do with centralization. It has to do with what the companies decided to do. Servint, Erols, DedicatedNow, DigitalNation, etc started before Amazon. So did EV1 or Choopa. They simply played a game of hardware rather than software tooling. As the hardware became more and more commoditized the software became more and more important. C/Panel and Plesk did not cut it. That's why Amazon/Google/Azure won.

Swizec 7y ago

There is. It’s called convenience. Why do you think the mall destroyed the downtown? It’s not because people wanted a decentralized store owners. It’s because consumers want centralization. Same thing happening in ecommerce. People want everything in one place. But the trend is also already shifting. People are tired of the big stores so much like malls have started to die, so too ecomm is increasingly about personal relationships.

rolltiide 7y ago
> It’s not because people wanted a decentralized store owners. I'm going to use this
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
shadowoflight 7y ago
Amazon also has its hooks in consumers even deeper with Prime. Sure, another store might be willing to sell me an item for a couple bucks cheaper, but then when I factor in the extra shipping costs, Amazon comes out ahead - and they defray that cost for the consumer with value-added services like Prime Video and Twitch Prime, so that I don't really feel like I'm paying for the shipping, but rather for a bundle of services that happens to include the free shipping that keeps me tied to Amazon over other e-commerce sites. It's also interesting because this means that it's not only less convenient, but also more expensive to use other platforms - and in a Capitalist society, anti-giant-corporation ethics can't really stand against the need to not live on the street and the desire to own nice(ish) things.

braythwayt 7y ago

Same thing keeps happening to software. When a platform first launches, its sponsor works overtime recruiting indie developers to launch their own apps on the platform. They know that users will only come to the platform if it has content/apps that they want. Then at some point, the platform gains "critical mass." People stop buying the platform as a way to get a specific app, and start buying the platform for the platform, confident that it will provide whatever they need. Soon thereafter, the platform sponsor begins either buying up apps on its platform or making its own competition for apps on its platform. the independents are squeezed out because the platform no longer needs them to be successful. Then another platform launches, and its sponsor screams "developers, developers, developers..." And the cycle begins anew.

neilv 7y ago

Maybe there are better references, but, in January 2000, I wrote up a bunch of notes on the experience of building a PC from parts, as the various resellers and shoppers were still in the early stages of figuring things out: https://www.neilvandyke.org/cheap-pc-2000/ https://www.neilvandyke.org/cheap-pc-2000/

taylortrusty 7y ago
That was a blast from the past and a fun read.
giobox 7y ago
Wow, I remember the having the exact same deliberation and selecting the Abit BP6 at the time for much the same reasons. The ability of that motherboard to run dual Intel Celeron CPUs was unique at the time as it was a feature Intel had disabled on these chips and required some magic from Abit to enable the dual CPU functionality. This was arguably really the board that made dual processor configs affordable for enthusiasts on a budget for the first time, I loved mine. > http://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/3q99/bp6/bp6-1.html http://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/3q99/bp6/bp6-1.html
Wildgoose 7y ago
I bought the Abit BP6 motherboard and installed twin 533 Mhz Celerons as well! I still have the machine, it dual-booted between Linux and OS/2. Fantastic performance for the money.

wwweston 7y ago

It's easy to see the potential technology has to fulfill your values. It's harder to see the potential it has to fulfill other people's values (which may be very different from yours). Overall, what technology does most readily is magnify what people or societies are inclined to. So, in a capitalist/corporate economy where scale is incentivized and rewarded, technology will tend to magnify that. It can also magnify the chances early adopters have to make a new entry into the market for a certain window, but it won't alter the overall dynamic (this is a descriptive commentary, not necessarily normative). And boy, I remember when I thought the main obstacle to well-balanced political discussion was a lack of easy access to thoughtful, reliable information.

p1necone 7y ago

Unfettered capitalism tends towards collusion and consolidation, not competition.

walshemj 7y ago

I thought that the internet was about disintermediation not about adding 1001 me to comparison sites with identical products with identical copy from the same wholesalers.

kart23 7y ago

On the contrary, I've seen a lot of great smaller stores be able to set up their own web stores much easier thanks to tools like shopify or stripe. There is still a decent amount of work going towards allowing the smaller guys to have a presence online.

dredmorbius 7y ago

We got the logic wrong. Efficiency increases drive centralisation, not decentralisation.

rexpop 7y ago

> it's as if there is a conspiracy to keep centralizing. Rent-seeking is a basic force of Capitalism.