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An issue not talked about enough if the type of regulation. Think about plumbing and electrical systems. There is a great amount of interoperability within a

by mfer 7y ago

An issue not talked about enough if the type of regulation. Think about plumbing and electrical systems. There is a great amount of interoperability within a region which enables competition. We mostly can't imagine having to have your appliances coupled to the company where all the parts for the electric wiring in your home are from. Things are interoperable. Interoperability in this sense is good for competition and people. It's also a regulation type that's mostly not talked about. If big tech is going to be regulated it should be no surprise that their lobbyists work to have regulation that is more likely to benefit them. There is a type of regulation that could be very useful that's not getting enough airtime.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>Think about plumbing and electrical systems. There is a great amount of interoperability within a region which enables competition. We mostly can't imagine having to have your appliances coupled to the company where all the parts for the electric wiring in your home are from. Things are interoperable. The overwhelming majority of that interoperability came from a battle of competing standards that left only a few standing. It was a situation is a lot like the state of PC hardware in the 80s through mid-'00s but spread over a longer timeline. If you go buy a $15 machinist/tool room desk reference from the early 1900s on eBay and it will be chock full of specifications for various thread forms for fasteners of which a few now dominate. Even today hydraulics and plumbing suppliers publish multi-hundred page catalogs of the various widgets used to control fluid and gas flow. Much has been written about the various competing standards and ways of doing things for electrical and I'm not very familiar with that history so I'll omit it here. Most of the regulation we have is in the form of this or that regulator body saying things need to comply with this or that code. The only reason this forces interoperability is because most codes just take the industry default and apply that. For example we use NPT for gas plumbing not because it has some magical properties that make it good for that, but because we always have and that's just what the trade groups trying to write building codes wrote about which then got codified into law. So codes and standards do sort of force interoperability but only as a side effect of the circular cause and effect pattern leading to those codes having the force of law. I'm all for interoperability and portability in tech but I'm not sure how we get there quickly without botching it. I have heard of many little proposed regulations that would be steps in the right direction but it would take time to see if that would solve the current problem of too much centralized power.
Dirlewanger 7y ago
I think this is an issue that just doesn't have a solution anymore. No company wants to work with each other to create a platform/standards that benefits the end users, they all want to undercut each other, or lobby the shit of governments to create barriers of entry for competition. Equally important: it doesn't help that working in the public sector pays less and is loaded with bureaucracy. All the smart minds go to the private sector because that's where the most immediate personal incentives lie.

by mfer 7y ago

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

>Think about plumbing and electrical systems. There is a great amount of interoperability within a region which enables competition. We mostly can't imagine having to have your appliances coupled to the company where all the parts for the electric wiring in your home are from. Things are interoperable. The overwhelming majority of that interoperability came from a battle of competing standards that left only a few standing. It was a situation is a lot like the state of PC hardware in the 80s through mid-'00s but spread over a longer timeline. If you go buy a $15 machinist/tool room desk reference from the early 1900s on eBay and it will be chock full of specifications for various thread forms for fasteners of which a few now dominate. Even today hydraulics and plumbing suppliers publish multi-hundred page catalogs of the various widgets used to control fluid and gas flow. Much has been written about the various competing standards and ways of doing things for electrical and I'm not very familiar with that history so I'll omit it here. Most of the regulation we have is in the form of this or that regulator body saying things need to comply with this or that code. The only reason this forces interoperability is because most codes just take the industry default and apply that. For example we use NPT for gas plumbing not because it has some magical properties that make it good for that, but because we always have and that's just what the trade groups trying to write building codes wrote about which then got codified into law. So codes and standards do sort of force interoperability but only as a side effect of the circular cause and effect pattern leading to those codes having the force of law. I'm all for interoperability and portability in tech but I'm not sure how we get there quickly without botching it. I have heard of many little proposed regulations that would be steps in the right direction but it would take time to see if that would solve the current problem of too much centralized power.

Dirlewanger 7y ago

I think this is an issue that just doesn't have a solution anymore. No company wants to work with each other to create a platform/standards that benefits the end users, they all want to undercut each other, or lobby the shit of governments to create barriers of entry for competition. Equally important: it doesn't help that working in the public sector pays less and is loaded with bureaucracy. All the smart minds go to the private sector because that's where the most immediate personal incentives lie.