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Clearly this author has never tried to create a social network. It’s crazy hard, the network effect chicken and egg is really really really hard to crack. Unles

Clearly this author has never tried to create a social network. It’s crazy hard, the network effect chicken and egg is really really really hard to crack. Unless you use basic tactics to reduce friction as much as possible, how else are you going to grow from nothing? It’s also very strange to talk about SV and backers as if they’re some homogenous group. A diversity of skill sets, ethos, and methods exist. Many founders are going at it for the first time. And financial backers aren’t usually technically literate to warn about incrementing ids in SQL. They want to know how fast you’re growing and the business prospects. If we start creating laws around these things, then it’ll only be even tougher for up-comers to challenge the existing big players. It would be great if the mobile platforms could proxy contacts to at least solve that privacy problem while also being reasonable in their usage, but all new companies have to find some way into people’s hearts and minds that easily will forget about a new app within 10m of existing their first usage.

tpxl 6y ago
> If we start creating laws around these things, then it’ll only be even tougher for up-comers to challenge the existing big players This is such an unimaginative take. Laws could easily demand easy export of _all your_ data and interoperability of chat systems.
- leesalminen 6y ago
  How do you foresee that working? Would the government publish a standard API for all chat systems? Would chat system makers have to build a bridge for every single messenger ever made, even if it only has 1k users? I just don’t see how the law can make apps interoperable without huge barriers of entry that would benefit the incumbents.
  - 3np 6y ago
    Laws shouldn’t name names but properties, such as: Fully documented and available APIs where first-party clients or front-ends can not rely on undisclosed endpoints. For a chat app, that would just mean using en existing solution like XMPP or Matrix and provide API documentation for any added deltas. The less you touch user data, the less you have to think about this.
    - cortesoft 6y ago
      You could design an API that is very confusing to use, changes randomly, and all the documentation is only written in a language no one speaks.
      - dasyatidprime 6y ago
        And roll the dice on whether you would be able to tell the court with a straight face whether you had a business reason for making all those changes and it isn't just an end run around the interoperability law, perhaps comparing your behavior to competitors who don't do that, and…
        cortesoft 6y ago
        I don’t know... there would be a lot of bad apis you could point to in the world.
        dasyatidprime 6y ago
        Expert witness on reasonable industry practices, perhaps? But the deck might be easy to stack. Hmm. I suspect it's solvable if society has at least a slightly coherent idea of what's desired though.
        Dracophoenix 6y ago
        If society knew what it wanted then there would be no point in trying something new. Even if it did know, there are wouldn't be "reasonable industry practices". The only experts in that domain are called lawyers. Many businesses base their existence on breaking and building systems. After all, they're called start-ups for a reason. Proactive regulation (which seems like what you're proposing) just sounds like putting the cart before the horse and expecting the rest of the world to follow. To paraphrase Henry Ford, if he concerned himself with what people said they wanted, they would ask for faster horses.
  - creata 6y ago
    Why not just set an arbitrary threshold on how big you need to be before interoperability law applies to you? After all, people are only forced to interoperate with you when you're sufficiently big. > I just don’t see how the law can make apps interoperable without huge barriers of entry that would benefit the incumbents. I don't see how making such a huge dent in network effects will be anything but a detriment to the incumbents.
    - Dracophoenix 6y ago
      What's sufficiently big according to you? And what qualifies as interoperability? An API? Open sourcing the whole tech stack? What about in companies with hands in multiple markets? Does this apply de facto tech companies in other markets like Boeing or Toyota?
      - creata 6y ago
        Sorry, I haven't really thought about the specifics. Are you insinuating that these questions are insurmountable?
        Dracophoenix 6y ago
        Not that they're insurmountable at all. More that they are insurmountable to implement in a country where legal policy such as the one you're proposing violates freedom of speech and voluntary association. It seems a lot of what you're asking for come down to turning RFCs and standards organizations (i.e. W3C et al) into laws and legal bodies. Or giving the government a final say in what someone can or can't program. That's the only way I see forcing interoperability as a workable solution.
  - BelenusMordred 6y ago
    > How do you foresee that working? The exact same way it works with open banking api's.
- kodah 6y ago
  Unimaginative is the wrong word, imo. GP is calling out that over-regulation introduces market hurdles for smaller businesses. This is a known and non-controversial fact. Typically it gets addressed by instituting different requirements for various key metrics like company or user base size. Article 30 of the GDPR states that companies with fewer than 250 employees do not need to keep processing records unless “the processing it carries out is likely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of data subjects, the processing is not occasional, or the processing includes special categories of data…or personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences.” Your point about an authoritarian government siphoning user data from companies which siphoned that data is also possible and valid.
3np 6y ago
> If we start creating laws around these things, then it’ll only be even tougher for up-comers to challenge the existing big players. For interoperability etc I disagree. Leverage on existing protocols where possible and you get most of it for free. E.g. use xmpp/matrix if you need IM-like functionality.
justapassenger 6y ago
> If we start creating laws around these things, then it’ll only be even tougher for up-comers to challenge the existing big players. That's very "entrepreneurial" view. From big networks we've learnt what issues are there, but we should exclude small players from the rules, because it makes it hard to create a product? I do get a sentiment, but some products are just super hard to build and require huge capital and time investments. Does that give advantage to big established players? Yes. But why should we allow small players to act knowingly in a way that's bad?

tpxl 6y ago

> If we start creating laws around these things, then it’ll only be even tougher for up-comers to challenge the existing big players This is such an unimaginative take. Laws could easily demand easy export of _all your_ data and interoperability of chat systems.

leesalminen 6y ago
How do you foresee that working? Would the government publish a standard API for all chat systems? Would chat system makers have to build a bridge for every single messenger ever made, even if it only has 1k users? I just don’t see how the law can make apps interoperable without huge barriers of entry that would benefit the incumbents.
- 3np 6y ago
  Laws shouldn’t name names but properties, such as: Fully documented and available APIs where first-party clients or front-ends can not rely on undisclosed endpoints. For a chat app, that would just mean using en existing solution like XMPP or Matrix and provide API documentation for any added deltas. The less you touch user data, the less you have to think about this.
  - cortesoft 6y ago
    You could design an API that is very confusing to use, changes randomly, and all the documentation is only written in a language no one speaks.
    - dasyatidprime 6y ago
      And roll the dice on whether you would be able to tell the court with a straight face whether you had a business reason for making all those changes and it isn't just an end run around the interoperability law, perhaps comparing your behavior to competitors who don't do that, and…
      - cortesoft 6y ago
        I don’t know... there would be a lot of bad apis you could point to in the world.
        dasyatidprime 6y ago
        Expert witness on reasonable industry practices, perhaps? But the deck might be easy to stack. Hmm. I suspect it's solvable if society has at least a slightly coherent idea of what's desired though.
        Dracophoenix 6y ago
        If society knew what it wanted then there would be no point in trying something new. Even if it did know, there are wouldn't be "reasonable industry practices". The only experts in that domain are called lawyers. Many businesses base their existence on breaking and building systems. After all, they're called start-ups for a reason. Proactive regulation (which seems like what you're proposing) just sounds like putting the cart before the horse and expecting the rest of the world to follow. To paraphrase Henry Ford, if he concerned himself with what people said they wanted, they would ask for faster horses.
- creata 6y ago
  Why not just set an arbitrary threshold on how big you need to be before interoperability law applies to you? After all, people are only forced to interoperate with you when you're sufficiently big. > I just don’t see how the law can make apps interoperable without huge barriers of entry that would benefit the incumbents. I don't see how making such a huge dent in network effects will be anything but a detriment to the incumbents.
  - Dracophoenix 6y ago
    What's sufficiently big according to you? And what qualifies as interoperability? An API? Open sourcing the whole tech stack? What about in companies with hands in multiple markets? Does this apply de facto tech companies in other markets like Boeing or Toyota?
    - creata 6y ago
      Sorry, I haven't really thought about the specifics. Are you insinuating that these questions are insurmountable?
      - Dracophoenix 6y ago
        Not that they're insurmountable at all. More that they are insurmountable to implement in a country where legal policy such as the one you're proposing violates freedom of speech and voluntary association. It seems a lot of what you're asking for come down to turning RFCs and standards organizations (i.e. W3C et al) into laws and legal bodies. Or giving the government a final say in what someone can or can't program. That's the only way I see forcing interoperability as a workable solution.
- BelenusMordred 6y ago
  > How do you foresee that working? The exact same way it works with open banking api's.
kodah 6y ago
Unimaginative is the wrong word, imo. GP is calling out that over-regulation introduces market hurdles for smaller businesses. This is a known and non-controversial fact. Typically it gets addressed by instituting different requirements for various key metrics like company or user base size. Article 30 of the GDPR states that companies with fewer than 250 employees do not need to keep processing records unless “the processing it carries out is likely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of data subjects, the processing is not occasional, or the processing includes special categories of data…or personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences.” Your point about an authoritarian government siphoning user data from companies which siphoned that data is also possible and valid.

3np 6y ago

> If we start creating laws around these things, then it’ll only be even tougher for up-comers to challenge the existing big players. For interoperability etc I disagree. Leverage on existing protocols where possible and you get most of it for free. E.g. use xmpp/matrix if you need IM-like functionality.

justapassenger 6y ago

> If we start creating laws around these things, then it’ll only be even tougher for up-comers to challenge the existing big players. That's very "entrepreneurial" view. From big networks we've learnt what issues are there, but we should exclude small players from the rules, because it makes it hard to create a product? I do get a sentiment, but some products are just super hard to build and require huge capital and time investments. Does that give advantage to big established players? Yes. But why should we allow small players to act knowingly in a way that's bad?