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I went and read the article, and the big thing about it that actually surprised me was the focus on "networks" and "platforms" and tech companies, all of which

I went and read the article, and the big thing about it that actually surprised me was the focus on "networks" and "platforms" and tech companies, all of which would have seemed a lot more relevant maybe five years ago. I would have expected to see more reference to real-estate rentierism (including its manifestation as "magic money trees" for the middle class in some countries, and as politically fashionable NIMBYism in the major world urban centers), financial scams (they refer to tax dodging schemes but then pass it on by to talk about tech platforms some more), and the higher educational-industrial complex. Which is not to say I love tech companies and "platforms" so much, but as the COVID-19 shutdowns have shown us, stuff like AirBnB and Uber basically just make money off facilitating other people's transactions in economic sectors that are already heavily rentiered and concentrated. Taxis and real-estate aren't going to get any less rentiering just by getting rid of the apps.

epistasis 6y ago
Yes, I was a bit surprised by that too, but I think a lot of the attention on that is that it feels liked a newer problem than that of land, which is a well hashed topic over the centuries. The attention economy, or rather the limited amount of attention that consumers have to find new information/retail/entertainment outlets, has existed ever since we had wide distribution of periodicals through mail. Anybody could become a Sears in 1920 in the same sense that anybody could build an Amazon today. But the scale of the internet has really amplified this, and it feels much newer since we have oligarchs in SV now with far more publicity than typical US oligarchs. They get media attention because they have threatened the media. They tyranny of NIMBY-driven land use is not a (new) threat to traditional media, and those who uphold that system are the same people who typically prop up local media, and media is controlled by those that own property in the same way. If you want to be a YouTube star or a Hollywood star, you had more avenues to success in Hollywood but it was still a very limited number of power brokers that gate keeped access. Now, organic growth of a YouTube star is possible, but that star is share cropping just as the Hollywood star is sharecropping a system with tightly controlled distribution; YouTube is a single agent and there's just a handful of Hollywood studios. Personally, I think that real estate rentierism is a far bigger problem than platforms. But addressing that offends a far broader audience, and lacks novelty, even if the scale of rentierism is affecting higher income quantiles than in anybody's memory.
- eli_gottlieb 6y ago
  >Personally, I think that real estate rentierism is a far bigger problem than platforms. But addressing that offends a far broader audience, and lacks novelty, even if the scale of rentierism is affecting higher income quantiles than in anybody's memory. That's a pretty good summary, yeah. As vile as Facebook spying and YouTube's hit-rate algorithm can be, most people are more affected by old-fashioned landlording, with the semi-novel twist that the metropole and its inhabitants try to limit the number of people who can move in and "compete for jobs", rather than dragooning people out of the countryside to work in labor-intensive industries.

epistasis 6y ago

Yes, I was a bit surprised by that too, but I think a lot of the attention on that is that it feels liked a newer problem than that of land, which is a well hashed topic over the centuries. The attention economy, or rather the limited amount of attention that consumers have to find new information/retail/entertainment outlets, has existed ever since we had wide distribution of periodicals through mail. Anybody could become a Sears in 1920 in the same sense that anybody could build an Amazon today. But the scale of the internet has really amplified this, and it feels much newer since we have oligarchs in SV now with far more publicity than typical US oligarchs. They get media attention because they have threatened the media. They tyranny of NIMBY-driven land use is not a (new) threat to traditional media, and those who uphold that system are the same people who typically prop up local media, and media is controlled by those that own property in the same way. If you want to be a YouTube star or a Hollywood star, you had more avenues to success in Hollywood but it was still a very limited number of power brokers that gate keeped access. Now, organic growth of a YouTube star is possible, but that star is share cropping just as the Hollywood star is sharecropping a system with tightly controlled distribution; YouTube is a single agent and there's just a handful of Hollywood studios. Personally, I think that real estate rentierism is a far bigger problem than platforms. But addressing that offends a far broader audience, and lacks novelty, even if the scale of rentierism is affecting higher income quantiles than in anybody's memory.

eli_gottlieb 6y ago
>Personally, I think that real estate rentierism is a far bigger problem than platforms. But addressing that offends a far broader audience, and lacks novelty, even if the scale of rentierism is affecting higher income quantiles than in anybody's memory. That's a pretty good summary, yeah. As vile as Facebook spying and YouTube's hit-rate algorithm can be, most people are more affected by old-fashioned landlording, with the semi-novel twist that the metropole and its inhabitants try to limit the number of people who can move in and "compete for jobs", rather than dragooning people out of the countryside to work in labor-intensive industries.