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The "Protocols, Not Platforms" debate is naive and misses the point. Here is why: - Let's say someone builds a social network protocol (including messaging, ph

The "Protocols, Not Platforms" debate is naive and misses the point. Here is why: - Let's say someone builds a social network protocol (including messaging, photo sharing etc). - Let's be generous and say this protocol becomes so successful it turns into a de facto standards. - The market will rush to build the best client for the protocol. Facebook, Google, maybe an outsider will come up with the best client that has all the features and added goodies (magic emojis, special video effects, something new etc). - People wanting to get on the networks will never google the protocol just like people who want to get an email client do not google "imap". They just google the most popular client such as gmail. - Overtime, the most popular client will get a quasi-monopoly and will become incompatible with the rest of clients, no one will notice except for us nerds on HN. - This already happened with xmpp (facebook messenger, google hangouts and others used to be on xmpp). Now you might say, "but how about email"? Well, first of all, email is an oligopoly and it's practically impossible for individuals to set up their own servers and expect their emails to get delivered all of the time. So I wouldn't call email such a great success story. Another thing is that email is work oriented and so it makes sense to keep compatibility between businesses. Email also arrived very early and had time to spread slowly at the beginning of the internet among various small to big players, which explains why no company could take over it. For all these reasons, I do not believe in a magical protocol that would save us from big tech. The protocol in itself would not be enough. A non-profit would need to be in charge of the most popular client such as Mozilla with Firefox, but even then this did not turned out as expected although Chromium is open source so yay.

wmf 7y ago
So the outcome of this would be that Nazis wouldn't be banned from the protocol but the client(s) that 99% of people use would not display anything the Nazis post (Mastodon is getting there already). Sounds fine to me but it would probably just shift the debate from deplatforming to client-stealth-banning.
- patrickaljord 7y ago
  No, that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying the most popular client will make its protocol proprietary and incompatible with any other clients, nazi or not. And no one will notice. Just like no one noticed when google hangouts or facebook messenger dropped xmpp.
zzo38computer 7y ago
I do have my own email server, but it is only for receiving and not for sending; the ISP's SMTP server is used for sending. Probably anyone could do this, if they have a ISP with email (which they ought to have, for this reason). (Also, it seem that in Ubuntu, when installing Exim there is an option to do specifically this.)
dogcomplex 7y ago
An excellent counterargument. Yes, one might concede that protocols have not and probably will not win out over platforms in a free market. But if we're advocating that the big tech utilities be required by law to open source their protocols then your argument doesn't apply, as of right here: > Overtime, the most popular client will get a quasi-monopoly and will become incompatible with the rest of clients, no one will notice except for us nerds on HN. As soon as those popular clients get incompatible, they cross the line into a new protocol - and we force them by law to open-source license that too. Sure, the major platforms will still own 90% of the traffic since the public is mindless (for now, until its educated over generations), but third party options will again be possible. So all this advocating for protocols is still very relevant, it's just probably not going to happen by itself or from some magic invention.
- nextos 7y ago
  I also think regulation is important. Like energy markets, some software, particularly communication systems, favor big players due to network effects. So regulators should prevent anticompetitive behaviors such as what happened with Google Talk. When Google Talk was a new product, it was a fantastic XMPP implementation. They even contributed the Jingle extension to implement VoIP. Once they became a dominant force, XMPP federation was removed effectively making it impossible to communicate with Gmail accounts from other providers. Later on, with the transition to Google Hangouts, XMPP was replaced by a proprietary protocol making it impossible to use even a different client other than Google's.
- jmull 7y ago
  An open-source protocol won't prevent a platform from accepting content only from approved sources and serving it only to approved clients. Facebook could start using on open protocol today, then block anyone not signed in through facebook and the result is nothing at all would change. Maybe you're thinking platforms will somehow also be required to accept and share content from anyone? If so, all platforms become like 8chan (or worse). If not, there's someone, somewhere deciding what can and can't be shared on each platform (like there is now). I think the fundamental confusion here is the idea that some kind of protocols vs. platform dynamic even exists. Social media platforms are trying to achieve a captivating user experience built off our social nature to monetize our attention. Protocols are used, but they are deeply buried implementation details.
zzzcpan 7y ago
> Overtime, the most popular client will get a quasi-monopoly and will become incompatible with the rest of clients Yes, but it doesn't have to be this way. It's possible to design systems that align all those predatory capitalist incentives of participants with keeping control decentralized. Bittorrent and bitcoin are prime examples of this. And it definitely can be done for more applications. There is one problem though, creating such systems is not lucrative, it can't make creators rich even if it changes the world.
- nine_k 7y ago
  It cannot make you rich quick. It can still provide a comfortable living to those who offer a superior implementation with a paid service, like Proton Mail, or whatever IP telephony provider you respect.
hinkley 7y ago
When France had a lot of socialized businesses, they used them to enforce Proper French. There are variations on this theme that could potentially work here. Years ago there was a push to get government to make all public documents exist in a standard format so that nobody was locked into a particular vendor's (potentially for-pay) reader. If some independent entity as large as the Public Sector supported an open standard, then it would provide a lot of friction toward efforts to balkanize the standard. Because if you weren't at least backward compatible with the standard, then people would notice.
larrysalibra 7y ago
I agree what you described - one client getting really popular is a huge risk, but the risk is not the popularity of one client, it’s the popularity of the client without any user knowledge of the underlying protocol. I recently wrote about XMPP and this problem https://salibra.com/p/the-death-of-jabber-8ea395e82f5b https://salibra.com/p/the-death-of-jabber-8ea395e82f5b The risk you’ve described isn’t as insurmountable: So far, bitcoin, ethereum, & BitTorrent serve as strong counter examples to the problem you state. They’ve remained clearly defined protocols that users seek out instead of a particular client and have proven hard for popular clients to fork.
RyanAF7 7y ago
You only don't believe it because you lack the imagination to build it. Which is the case for everyone but the person who does. Unfortunately, that person may have killed himself because of JStor. Ultimately, you apply modalities not concepts which explains why you can't see it. Email doesn't need to be email it only needs to provide equal or greater utility.
pgt 7y ago
Spolsky wrote a great piece about embrace and extend titled "Fire & Motion"[^1]. The most important thing for defending against these incumbents is to aggressively prevent and repeal regulation that would stifle competition. Nassim Taleb's view on incumbents is that as long as the mighty can fall (i.e. no bailouts, no protection), it gives disruptors a chance to rise to the top (so they can later fall). - [^1]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/
emptysongglass 7y ago
It is not “practically impossible” for individuals to set up their own email servers with good deliverability. I run my own and emails get delivered to my intended receivers all the time. If you want email to become more distributed someone ought to come along to make a Helm that isn't so expensive. You just have to make the protocol sticky enough and distributed enough so one corp doesn't wield Total Control.
- randallsquared 7y ago
  > I run my own and emails get delivered to my intended receivers all the time. That's a pretty low bar, unless you mean "all the time" as "every single time". :) Before I gave up and moved to AWS Workmail this year, I'd run a personal mail server for about 20 years. Major issues were not too uncommon, and minor ones were constant: "Why can everyone in the world get mail from my server except outlook.com users?" I can't remember if I ever resolved this. "Why do more and more corporate servers ignore SMTP retry rules?" It was nice when only spammers did that and graylisting was effective. "No, it's not my server that's sending those spam emails that spoof my domain; I checked. Yes, really." This happened more than a decade ago, and I assume it either stopped or was solved by the spread of TLS or something.
  - emptysongglass 7y ago
    I have had a Gmail account since the beginning and have, not infrequently, had my sent email arrive in spam. These arguments against the ease with which we may decentralize basic ubiquitious protocols lean on, I don't know, a basic bleak outlook? People thought I was crazy for unplugging from every Facebook service. No one would follow me over to my messenger of choice they said. I proved them wrong. And you can too. But it takes a little patience and a little persistence and little sticking to your ideals. Our basic internet freedoms are worth this.
- notyourday 7y ago
  You are a fluke of a customer. My bodega owner is a customer. So are his kids that help him. And an old mexican lady who works in a hipster coffee shop because hipsters that own it cannot be bothered to get up at 6am to open at 7am. They use email. None of them are interested in "setting up their own email server". They are interested in being able to send email and get email.
feanaro 7y ago
> Now you might say, "but how about email"? Well, first of all, email is an oligopoly and it's practically impossible for individuals to set up their own servers and expect their emails to get delivered all of the time. I do it and it works well. My advice is to try it before you dismiss it as impossible. Regarding your overall point, this is partly a social/cultural problem. There's no inherent reason why people would not search for the protocol and not the monopolistic application nor why multiple "best" application could not co-exist. After all, not everyone has the same use case so different applications can specialize to catering for different use cases. The idea of protocols needs to become more mainstream and ingrained into the minds of common people and this is why essays like these are important.
inflatableDodo 7y ago
>Well, first of all, email is an oligopoly and it's practically impossible for individuals to set up their own servers and expect their emails to get delivered all of the time. What the hell are you doing to your mail servers? edit - also, can the client be in the protocol?
rqs 7y ago
One question: During the time which Facebook Messenger and Google Hangout are both using XMPP, is it possible for a Google Hangout user to send message to a Facebook Messenger user via Google Hangout client?
- lkhhj 7y ago
  Hmm, I don't remember, but I doubt it. The point of FB Messenger using XMPP was that you could add your FB account to your XMPP client and chat with your friends from there
- Multicomp 7y ago
  I forget where I read it now but if memory serves that was part of the reason why Google Talk xmpp federation was turned off because Facebook was importing Google Talk users but then not also sharing the xmpp federation so in order to stop bleeding users, Google Talk turned off their xmpp federation. This is an anecdote until I can find a source.
- liotier 7y ago
  Facebook never supported XMPP federation - only chat with Facebook contacts.
shireboy 7y ago
Article addresses the “popular client” problem and Gmail in particular. Yes, oligopoly but still possible to shift providers if any one client gets too controlling. Leading to incentive for popular client to play nicely. I don’t see it as an end-all, but do think it’s ridiculous that, say, iMessage only lets you iMessage other iPhones and falls to sms/mms for others. What if Gmail only let you send rich text to other Gmail users, falling back to plain text outside their bubble? There is zero that iMessage does that couldn’t be done in xmpp, or at least an open protocol. Similar with social media. It’s all the same thing: friends, posts, wall. Use ActivityPub or something similar and open it up. Won’t be perfect, but will be better than one platform holding all the cards.
samirillian 7y ago
Political problems require political solutions. Us nerds in tech too often assume some magic bullet protocol or other data structure or algorithm will fix how humans relate. But at the end of the day, power is about power, and a protocol or a platform is just on form of power.
erlend_sh 7y ago
A possible remedy to this might be the emergence of “fat protocols” http://www.usv.com/blog/fat-protocols http://www.usv.com/blog/fat-protocols

wmf 7y ago

So the outcome of this would be that Nazis wouldn't be banned from the protocol but the client(s) that 99% of people use would not display anything the Nazis post (Mastodon is getting there already). Sounds fine to me but it would probably just shift the debate from deplatforming to client-stealth-banning.

patrickaljord 7y ago
No, that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying the most popular client will make its protocol proprietary and incompatible with any other clients, nazi or not. And no one will notice. Just like no one noticed when google hangouts or facebook messenger dropped xmpp.

zzo38computer 7y ago

I do have my own email server, but it is only for receiving and not for sending; the ISP's SMTP server is used for sending. Probably anyone could do this, if they have a ISP with email (which they ought to have, for this reason). (Also, it seem that in Ubuntu, when installing Exim there is an option to do specifically this.)

dogcomplex 7y ago

An excellent counterargument. Yes, one might concede that protocols have not and probably will not win out over platforms in a free market. But if we're advocating that the big tech utilities be required by law to open source their protocols then your argument doesn't apply, as of right here: > Overtime, the most popular client will get a quasi-monopoly and will become incompatible with the rest of clients, no one will notice except for us nerds on HN. As soon as those popular clients get incompatible, they cross the line into a new protocol - and we force them by law to open-source license that too. Sure, the major platforms will still own 90% of the traffic since the public is mindless (for now, until its educated over generations), but third party options will again be possible. So all this advocating for protocols is still very relevant, it's just probably not going to happen by itself or from some magic invention.

nextos 7y ago
I also think regulation is important. Like energy markets, some software, particularly communication systems, favor big players due to network effects. So regulators should prevent anticompetitive behaviors such as what happened with Google Talk. When Google Talk was a new product, it was a fantastic XMPP implementation. They even contributed the Jingle extension to implement VoIP. Once they became a dominant force, XMPP federation was removed effectively making it impossible to communicate with Gmail accounts from other providers. Later on, with the transition to Google Hangouts, XMPP was replaced by a proprietary protocol making it impossible to use even a different client other than Google's.
jmull 7y ago
An open-source protocol won't prevent a platform from accepting content only from approved sources and serving it only to approved clients. Facebook could start using on open protocol today, then block anyone not signed in through facebook and the result is nothing at all would change. Maybe you're thinking platforms will somehow also be required to accept and share content from anyone? If so, all platforms become like 8chan (or worse). If not, there's someone, somewhere deciding what can and can't be shared on each platform (like there is now). I think the fundamental confusion here is the idea that some kind of protocols vs. platform dynamic even exists. Social media platforms are trying to achieve a captivating user experience built off our social nature to monetize our attention. Protocols are used, but they are deeply buried implementation details.

zzzcpan 7y ago

> Overtime, the most popular client will get a quasi-monopoly and will become incompatible with the rest of clients Yes, but it doesn't have to be this way. It's possible to design systems that align all those predatory capitalist incentives of participants with keeping control decentralized. Bittorrent and bitcoin are prime examples of this. And it definitely can be done for more applications. There is one problem though, creating such systems is not lucrative, it can't make creators rich even if it changes the world.

nine_k 7y ago
It cannot make you rich quick. It can still provide a comfortable living to those who offer a superior implementation with a paid service, like Proton Mail, or whatever IP telephony provider you respect.

hinkley 7y ago

When France had a lot of socialized businesses, they used them to enforce Proper French. There are variations on this theme that could potentially work here. Years ago there was a push to get government to make all public documents exist in a standard format so that nobody was locked into a particular vendor's (potentially for-pay) reader. If some independent entity as large as the Public Sector supported an open standard, then it would provide a lot of friction toward efforts to balkanize the standard. Because if you weren't at least backward compatible with the standard, then people would notice.

larrysalibra 7y ago

I agree what you described - one client getting really popular is a huge risk, but the risk is not the popularity of one client, it’s the popularity of the client without any user knowledge of the underlying protocol. I recently wrote about XMPP and this problem https://salibra.com/p/the-death-of-jabber-8ea395e82f5b https://salibra.com/p/the-death-of-jabber-8ea395e82f5b The risk you’ve described isn’t as insurmountable: So far, bitcoin, ethereum, & BitTorrent serve as strong counter examples to the problem you state. They’ve remained clearly defined protocols that users seek out instead of a particular client and have proven hard for popular clients to fork.

RyanAF7 7y ago

You only don't believe it because you lack the imagination to build it. Which is the case for everyone but the person who does. Unfortunately, that person may have killed himself because of JStor. Ultimately, you apply modalities not concepts which explains why you can't see it. Email doesn't need to be email it only needs to provide equal or greater utility.

pgt 7y ago

Spolsky wrote a great piece about embrace and extend titled "Fire & Motion"[^1]. The most important thing for defending against these incumbents is to aggressively prevent and repeal regulation that would stifle competition. Nassim Taleb's view on incumbents is that as long as the mighty can fall (i.e. no bailouts, no protection), it gives disruptors a chance to rise to the top (so they can later fall). - [^1]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/

emptysongglass 7y ago

It is not “practically impossible” for individuals to set up their own email servers with good deliverability. I run my own and emails get delivered to my intended receivers all the time. If you want email to become more distributed someone ought to come along to make a Helm that isn't so expensive. You just have to make the protocol sticky enough and distributed enough so one corp doesn't wield Total Control.

randallsquared 7y ago
> I run my own and emails get delivered to my intended receivers all the time. That's a pretty low bar, unless you mean "all the time" as "every single time". :) Before I gave up and moved to AWS Workmail this year, I'd run a personal mail server for about 20 years. Major issues were not too uncommon, and minor ones were constant: "Why can everyone in the world get mail from my server except outlook.com users?" I can't remember if I ever resolved this. "Why do more and more corporate servers ignore SMTP retry rules?" It was nice when only spammers did that and graylisting was effective. "No, it's not my server that's sending those spam emails that spoof my domain; I checked. Yes, really." This happened more than a decade ago, and I assume it either stopped or was solved by the spread of TLS or something.
- emptysongglass 7y ago
  I have had a Gmail account since the beginning and have, not infrequently, had my sent email arrive in spam. These arguments against the ease with which we may decentralize basic ubiquitious protocols lean on, I don't know, a basic bleak outlook? People thought I was crazy for unplugging from every Facebook service. No one would follow me over to my messenger of choice they said. I proved them wrong. And you can too. But it takes a little patience and a little persistence and little sticking to your ideals. Our basic internet freedoms are worth this.
notyourday 7y ago
You are a fluke of a customer. My bodega owner is a customer. So are his kids that help him. And an old mexican lady who works in a hipster coffee shop because hipsters that own it cannot be bothered to get up at 6am to open at 7am. They use email. None of them are interested in "setting up their own email server". They are interested in being able to send email and get email.

feanaro 7y ago

> Now you might say, "but how about email"? Well, first of all, email is an oligopoly and it's practically impossible for individuals to set up their own servers and expect their emails to get delivered all of the time. I do it and it works well. My advice is to try it before you dismiss it as impossible. Regarding your overall point, this is partly a social/cultural problem. There's no inherent reason why people would not search for the protocol and not the monopolistic application nor why multiple "best" application could not co-exist. After all, not everyone has the same use case so different applications can specialize to catering for different use cases. The idea of protocols needs to become more mainstream and ingrained into the minds of common people and this is why essays like these are important.

inflatableDodo 7y ago

>Well, first of all, email is an oligopoly and it's practically impossible for individuals to set up their own servers and expect their emails to get delivered all of the time. What the hell are you doing to your mail servers? edit - also, can the client be in the protocol?

rqs 7y ago

One question: During the time which Facebook Messenger and Google Hangout are both using XMPP, is it possible for a Google Hangout user to send message to a Facebook Messenger user via Google Hangout client?

lkhhj 7y ago
Hmm, I don't remember, but I doubt it. The point of FB Messenger using XMPP was that you could add your FB account to your XMPP client and chat with your friends from there
Multicomp 7y ago
I forget where I read it now but if memory serves that was part of the reason why Google Talk xmpp federation was turned off because Facebook was importing Google Talk users but then not also sharing the xmpp federation so in order to stop bleeding users, Google Talk turned off their xmpp federation. This is an anecdote until I can find a source.
liotier 7y ago
Facebook never supported XMPP federation - only chat with Facebook contacts.

shireboy 7y ago

Article addresses the “popular client” problem and Gmail in particular. Yes, oligopoly but still possible to shift providers if any one client gets too controlling. Leading to incentive for popular client to play nicely. I don’t see it as an end-all, but do think it’s ridiculous that, say, iMessage only lets you iMessage other iPhones and falls to sms/mms for others. What if Gmail only let you send rich text to other Gmail users, falling back to plain text outside their bubble? There is zero that iMessage does that couldn’t be done in xmpp, or at least an open protocol. Similar with social media. It’s all the same thing: friends, posts, wall. Use ActivityPub or something similar and open it up. Won’t be perfect, but will be better than one platform holding all the cards.

samirillian 7y ago

Political problems require political solutions. Us nerds in tech too often assume some magic bullet protocol or other data structure or algorithm will fix how humans relate. But at the end of the day, power is about power, and a protocol or a platform is just on form of power.

erlend_sh 7y ago

A possible remedy to this might be the emergence of “fat protocols” http://www.usv.com/blog/fat-protocols http://www.usv.com/blog/fat-protocols